Visitors from Russia and Ukraine have been a vital part of Egypt’s tourism sector. According to the Ministry of Tourism and the Egyptian Chamber of Tourist Establishments, they typically account for about 40% of vacationers at the Red Sea and Mediterranean beach resorts. Combined, they accounted for nearly 1.9 million in 2021, according to government data. When Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, it appeared as if the war might jeopardize tourism. Workers at Red Sea resorts reported hotel occupancy dropped 35%-40%, according to Mohamed Sabry, a writer for Al-Monitor, a Middle East news website. The week following the invasion,…
Author: Nada Naguib
Waking up early in the morning to take advantage of the natural light, Fatima Ahmed films herself packing and wrapping notebooks and bookmarks. Using a makeshift extender attached to an old tripod, she sets her phone up to capture good overhead footage of how she packs. In post-production, she overlays footage and uses popular sound clips to make them more appealing. Ahmed, the owner of WIP Designs, an online stationery store, uses these short videos to market her business. She uploads them to TikTok, a short-form video hosting service, and then to Instagram as “reels,” clips of a minute or…
As governments and companies inch toward the deadlines for meeting their climate pledges, they must develop sustainable business models that meet the climate challenges and risks. Elsewedy Electric is one of Egypt’s pioneers, having reported on its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals since 2017. The Financial Regulatory Authority only announced in May that listed companies must file such reports in 2023. For their efforts, Elsewedy Electric received the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) sustainability award for 2022 for environmental and social best practices at its logistics facility in Sixth of October City. Additionally, it has supplied Sharm…
When the COVID-19 pandemic forced employees to work from home in early 2020, many people referenced it as the “new normal.” Two years later, with fewer lockdowns and the return of air travel, it seems like everything is back to business as usual. However, some remnants of the pandemic work style still remain. That emphasized existing human resources (HR) trends and gave rise to new ones. Engy Mahmoud, HR operations and digital transformation senior lead of Vodafone Egypt, noted that some of the key trends include flexibility, the “great resignation” movement, having a growth mentality, and the “great admin liberation,”…
Over the past decade, streaming services have cemented their place on entertainment schedules. At the close of 2019, The Guardian’s Simon Reynolds said the decade “broke popular culture” because “streaming has killed the mainstream.” Netflix, with more than 220 million subscribers, has become more than just a streaming service; some even use it as a verb, showcasing just how much it has shaped how people consume media. Streaming had dominated the entertainment industry so thoroughly that it was a seismic shock when Netflix announced in late April that its number of subscribers had declined for the first time in 10…
While some people go to the supermarket as part of their weekly routine, technology might be shifting the way we stock our pantries. By adding another application to your phone, even your groceries might just be a few taps away. Building upon what might have been a pandemic-fuelled success, grocery delivery apps are improving their technologies and expanding their reach to reshape how Egyptians consume groceries. Making money Most grocery delivery apps are organized by product type, with pictures, weights, prices and other information for each item. Customers add the items to a basket and checkout the same way they…
With the rise of digitization and e-commerce, a ‘PR story’ could be crucial to creating loyal customers and continuing growth. In July 2017, the world’s largest eCommerce platform by market value, Amazon, announced it was buying MENA’s most popular digital trading platform, Souq.com. However, instead of absorbing it, Amazon retained the Souq.com name and backend operations, ensuring visitors don’t feel any differences. At the time, Souq.com CEO and co-founder Ronaldo Mouchawar said: “Together with Amazon, our goal is to offer our customers the widest product selection, great prices, improved delivery times and first-rate customer service.” In September 2021, Amazon announced…
The slow yet vital march to curbing climate heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2030 is significantly affecting many industries, particularly those producing harmful emissions such as transportation and heavy industries. That is putting the global oil and gas industry in the spotlight. Not only do they need to decarbonize their extraction operations, but they also supply the fuels that emit environmentally-harmful gases when used. However, economies can’t simply discard fossil fuels in the short term. “Oil and gas would be needed in a transitional way,” says Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Tarek El Molla during the first-ever U.S.…
For as long as there have been advertisements, marketeers have been coming up with ways to entice customers to choose their products over others in the market. Sometimes, these enticements include appeals to what they think are the buyers’ feminine or masculine sensibilities. With evolving social roles and a growing awareness of the side effects of gender stereotypes, recent research shows that women especially reject needlessly gendered products. Research Delphine Caruelle, an associate professor in Marketing at Kristiania University College, explains gendered marketing as a strategy that “consists in segmenting consumers based on their gender and in tailoring one or…
Dubai holds over 40 Guinness world records. Records range from the world’s highest building (Burj Khalifa, at 830 meters or 2,723 feet) to recent bids for the longest cake, largest apple pie, and biggest baba-ganoush, according to the Gulf News portal. The city has come a long way from being a patch of desert before the 1970s. The pearling industry was the region’s pillar throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries said Harrison Jacobs of Business Insider. However, when that industry “dried up,” so did the economy, and what is now the lavish, luxurious Dubai became an “unremarkable port in…