stevie, thomas cook fly to 3 spanish mainland airports,reus,alicante and almeria,aswell as using faro in portugal for costa de la luz so i'm not sure where your information comes from.also thomsons fly to all of these plus malaga and girona. I don't see where the caribbean has been dropped particularly,they drop one island and then pick up another,this is more down to their demographic than any complaints,not so many high street packages to barbados or st lucia sell as they tend to attract the kind of people that want to go BA,virgin or on kuoni tours etc,plus mexico now seems to dominate the package market out there nowadays. dom rep is a prime example of a troubled destination,there they had complaints about illnesses and security in their thousands yet you can now go to 4 different areas still with TC and TUI amongst others,they sorted out most of their problems,listened to the tourists(US visitors having the loudest voice)and now it's seen as a premier destination again,i personally think egypt need to follow that example,it may sound trivial to some but the stomach illness issue is massive and as the reputation grows the booking will drop,i'm not a degree student who studied egypt but i am however a consumer and that qualifies me to voice the reasons that would put me off. we've been debating egypt for 2 years now and not gone because of it,i can list 7 or 8 couples we know and family members and work colleagues that have all been dreadfully ill in sharm and have vowed never to return,the civil unrest in cairo doesnt even seem to enter their or our heads,but the thought of paying all that money only to spend 4 days in pain and on the kazi does,that and the russians in the AI hotels.

Tunisia is another story altogether,everyone seems disappointed by the nightlife,or lack of!

Sounds like you have managed quite a good deal there Graham.

I am booked to go to the HSB in Sharm in the Autumn with Cosmos who fly Monarch, a holiday I had to reschedule for personal reasons from May.

I'm concerned that the flight/holiday may not happen, as I am flying off peak and am not sure how economic it is to keep flying with half empty planes. I don't suppose I will know till close to the time, but wonder if Monarch have arrangements in place to consolidate on to flights with other airlines?

When I last visited in Easter 2009, the planes were full and the Holiday Village, which I know is more popular was virtually full and for the week after i.e. the main Easter week was competely full.

I went to Mojacar on the Costa Almeria about 15 years back, massive Thomson property, full of Brits. The other day I was surfing about and tried to find reviews of it as was curious if it was still there or had been demolished.

It is still sold but only to the Spanish market, apparently it's pretty run down, virtually no investment in the intervening years. A British couple had booked it independantly and were not impressed, the Spanish seem happy with the basic accommodation if they get it at the right price.

It is a vicious circle as if there are no tourists there is no money to re-invest & the hotels start to look run down then nobody wants to go anymore. Just a downward spiral.

The amount of money that has been invested in hotels in Sharm, Marsa Alam, Taba, Hurgharda must be billions, it's frightening to think of it sitting there half empty for years. The hotel buildings/gardens/pools are often top quality & people can get a taste of something there that they cannot normally afford.

sambacasual wrote:

stevie, thomas cook fly to 3 spanish mainland airports,reus,alicante and almeria

I was only talking about flights Thomas Cook flights from Gatwick, as an example. They don't fly to Alicante from Gatwick. A couple of weekly flights to Reus and an A321 to Almeria is hardly the presence they had 10 years ago. Comparing Spain to Egypt is like comparing Apples to Oranges. Tour operators left Spain when the low cost airlines took over. Aside from a few weekly easyJet flights, find me a low cost airline flying between the UK and Egypt.

sambacasual wrote:

I don't see where the caribbean has been dropped particularly,they drop one island and then pick up another,this is more down to their demographic than any complaints,

Margarita was dropped by Thomson/First Choice because of customer complaints, fact. They even published the fact in one of their in flight magazines.

sambacasual wrote:

it may sound trivial to some but the stomach illness issue is massive and as the reputation grows the booking will drop,

The 'issue' has been apparent since Egypt first started accepting tourists, it didn't stop the unprecedented growth in tourist numbers in 2009 and 2010.

The 54% drop in seats from one UK airport to Sharm el Sheikh is almost entirely due to the civil unrest. Egypt was in a growth stage, all tour operators were increasing capacity to the country for this Summer and Winter 11/12. Capacity was only cut in February and March when panic emerged following the unrest. If the exodus was due to the 'stomach issue', the country wouldn't have become a major tourist destination with mass growth in the first place. The 'reputation' has existed for many years.

Besides, I've been twice and never had a problem, nor has anybody else I know that has been. Common sense (and maybe half an immune system) can get you a long way in life...

Regarding prices ........ we booked back in February to stay the Royal Grand Azure in late August, and we paid more to stay there than what we paid to go all inclusive to Aruba last July/August!

This past month the hotel, due to low occupancy, had to open up the market to Arba Israelis, Jordanians and Egypians in order to remain open, with occupancy for August at 60% at the moment.

A friend of mine has been trying to the the RGA for mid August and due to the lack of flights, the prices that she is being quoted 9 days (2 adults and 1 child) is coming in at around £2,800 to over £3000!! some of the flights are acutally priced around the £1000 mark per person ...... needless to say she won't be paying those prices!!!!

Regards,
Pat

common sense can get you a long way in life eh,whereas implying people that pick up serious medical conditions while doing what they would do in other holiday resorts don't have any makes you a bit of a patronising berk.

I do apologise if i misread your specific reference to a single airport,i didnt realise we were writing a thesis on international tourism that required absolutely 100% accuracy in every way,jesus.

The 54% drop in seats from one UK airport to Sharm el Sheikh is almost entirely due to the civil unrest.

So you're quoting that is absolute cast-iron FACT while dismissing someone elses opinion?

The stomach illness 'issue' is obviously an important one for it to be mentioned to such extent on just about every single review you read,the more people that went in 09/10 obviously lead to an increase in instances of things like this,why else would it be such a standing issue among trip advice,every single person i know that's been has been affected by it,even the reps i know and speak to every day that have worked out there say it's a constant ball ache for them and their guests.

Well in pal

If you don't drink enough (bottled) water, have drinks with ice cubes in them, don't wash your hands regularly and eat foods that are likely to have been washed under or made using tap water, then yes you are asking to be sitting on the toilet for half a week. If you do all that simply because 'you would in other resorts' then you are not using common sense. Its called adapting to the country in which you are visiting. Its not hard to avoid lettuce and ice cubes for a week. My main point is the first one, most people get ill because they don't drink enough water and keep themselves hydrated while in 35-40 degrees of heat. This is particularly an issue in Egypt because most hotels are All Inclusive - "why have water when I can have a beer, for free?" The two hotels I stayed in put two 1.5l bottles of water in the room every day, one each - this is not enough drinking water under 'normal' conditions, let alone when lying in 40 degree heat for 7-8 hours a day and drinking alcohol. Aside from keeping you hydrated, drinking water flushes out the toxins that will give you the stomach upsets/runs in the first place.

I was drinking 4-5 1.5L bottles per day and didn't get the slightest of tummy upsets, on both visits.

sambacasual wrote:

pick up serious medical conditions

Getting 'the runs' and a bit of a tummy ache is not a 'serious medical condition'.

sambacasual wrote:

Quote:
The 54% drop in seats from one UK airport to Sharm el Sheikh is almost entirely due to the civil unrest.

So you're quoting that is absolute cast-iron FACT while dismissing someone elses opinion?

Ok, let me introduce some facts. Thomson planned to increase flights from Gatwick to Sharm el Sheikh from 7x weekly to 8x weekly this summer, an additional 235 seats (+11%) per week. In early March, they cut the additional weekly flight and downgraded five weekly flights to 737-800 aircraft. So instead of an 11% increase in seats from LGW to Sharm, which was planned until March, the reality is they are offering 32% fewer seats on the route this summer.

British Airways planned to operate their 3x weekly flight, the same as last year, but announced on the 24th February that it was being axed.

In early March, Thomas Cook rescheduled their Egypt program from Gatwick, cancelling the two flights to Sharm el Sheikh altogether and downgrading their two Hurghada flights from high density A330s to 757 aircraft. Thomas Cook's only presence in Sharm from Gatwick this summer is a limited allocation on a Monarch flight on Sundays.

Now what exactly was happening in Egypt in February? Was there civil unrest, including the deaths of 846 people, in the nation's capital? Or was there a sudden increase in food poisoning cases for UK citizens in Egypt (during the quietest period of the year for leisure tourism, when many were staying away anyway due to the ongoing violence)?

criptospriridium,shingella,e.coli......none of those are serious at all are they pal,no worse than the common cold

Funny really,i know plenty of people here that work in AI hotels and speak to people daily that stay in them,and i assure you that while it may be cooler than Egypt (rhodes)it does regularly reach the 40's and people do drink and eat to savage excess,but i can only recall one person ever telling me that they had any serious stomach issues,that's in 10 years,however everyone i know who's been to sharm has had serious trouble resulting in 3 days in bed and a trip to the doctor,or worse.

Do you want to go on holiday at vast expense and have to seriously watch what you eat and drink,most people go on holiday with food and drink in mind,dont they?

look,the overwhelming reviews and discussions can't be ignored,that's not really rocket science,if you look for a holiday and more or less every hotel you research has numerous reports of people having bouts of illness you're a lot less likely to book to go there,if a large proportion of hotels in a single resort carry on the theme you're more likely to look elsewhere and when you discuss holidays with friends that are also looking you're likely to bring it up,which will in some cases cement their opinion that it isn't worth the risk. If you deny that Egypt has serious food and pool hygeine issues then you're blinkered in my opinion,if there's smoke,there's fire and the Egyptians would do well to address this on a large and convincing scale if they want their tourism industry to recover.

Thanks for the lecture on flight statistics,i just about stayed awake.

I thought that the jury was out on actually drinking loads of bottled water in Sharm etc as the amount of minerals in it could actually contribute to stomach upsets. The current thinking is to intersperse it with 7up, sprite, coke etc as they are made under sterile conditions plus have sugar in them which is one of the things you need to replace when you have the squits and can help calm the stomach.

The old cheshnut of the only people who get the squits are those who drink alcohol is just rubbish and when you see five and six year olds who can't hold it in. It is no discriminator of persons it's completely random.

Personally i think people jump to defend their favourite places and ignore any evidence that might go against their opinion,i've not once denied the unrest played a part but that's a thing of the past and i've certainly not come accross anyone that sees it as an issue,same as tunisia,nor have i read any reviews or online discussions relating to it,whereas the illness issue is ever present in a way you just don't see with other destinations,most of which also have a lot of AI hotels and soaring temps etc,i just don't buy it that people eating and drinking a lot causes so many cases of it when it doesnt elsewhere. I will of course be corrected and shot down in flames by the 'expert',but i'm a consumer and a regular holidaymaker and as such i vote with my feet based on what i see,as people do,i'm open-minded enough to know that reviews etc are not always 100% indicative of anything but when there's such a vast amount pointing towards the 'smoking gun' of stomach illness it's hard not to assume Egypt is the problem,not the people that visit it.

doepsmc wrote:

The old cheshnut of the only people who get the squits are those who drink alcohol

I never said 'the only' people who get it are those who drink alcohol, but it is a contributing factor to dehydration, which leads to illness.

sambacasual wrote:

criptospriridium,shingella,e.coli......none of those are serious at all are they pal,no worse than the common cold

And obviously "everyone you know who has been to Sharm" has got one of these diseases, haven't they.

sambacasual wrote:

look,the overwhelming reviews and discussions can't be ignored,that's not really rocket science,if you look for a holiday and more or less every hotel you research has numerous reports of people having bouts of illness you're a lot less likely to book to go there

I tend to ignore reviews actually. Research shows that only 10% of people write reviews for 'good experiences', and most only write one if they are complaining. I gave up reading reviews for Sharm before I went when I read one which gave the hotel one star because, and I quote "the beach looks like the Thames estuary when the tide goes out".

sambacasual wrote:

If you deny that Egypt has serious food and pool hygeine issues then you're blinkered in my opinion

I don't deny it, I realise there are hygiene issues. My post was simply in response to yours suggesting that a 54% decrease in capacity to a mass market destination is due to the hygiene 'issues' which have existed since the first day a foreign tourist stepped foot in Egypt, and has nothing to do with scaremongering due to the political unrest.

sambacasual wrote:

Thanks for the lecture on flight statistics,i just about stayed awake.

I'm glad you can accept, in a mature manner, when facts and statistics speak for themselves. I don't see any facts in your argument (and no "everyone I know thats been to Sharm" isn't a fact, nor a statistic).

This is getting out of hand now,you posed a question but everyone else is wrong so you no longer need my or anyone elses input, your learned opinion is the only one that's correct and the reports of illness from thousands or more holidaymakers every year must be all imaginary.

Good luck with it pal,not that you'll need it i suppose,you already have all the answers

The question I posed is is there likely to be a recovery soon following the political unrest earlier this year. I couldn't give two hoots about the hygiene issues with regards to my question, simply because it isn't the reason why there have been such drastic capacity cuts since Feb/March.

sambacasual wrote:

need my or anyone elses input

'Anyone elses'? I was enjoying the responses that people gave on the first page. Reasoned and justified responses and based on their own experiences. You say yourself you haven't even been to Egypt, and much of what you said wasn't 'opinion', it was factually incorrect or arguing for the sake of arguing.

OK then mate, you're spot-on

OK I am getting fed up with this bickering and the sarcastic remarks, so lets lighten up or I lock up

There have been various discussion previously regarding illness in Egypt, there is a search facility at the top of the page if you want to read them, however illness has been an issue in Egypt for a long time but has never stopped a year on year increase in visitor number, the main reason for the drop in demand to both Egypt (45% drop) & Tunisia(40% drop) IS the recent troubles, ask any travel agent and they will confirm the reason for the drop in bookings,

http://www.tourismandaviation.com/news-10747--An_exodus_of_tourists

Hopefully once the elections are over there will be some political stability and the public will again start to return in large numbers.

I have been to Egypt,Tunisia,Turkey and the Dominican Republic which was the worst place for food poisoning a few years ago.
I have never been ill abroad anywhere and I would return to Tunisia and Egypt tomorrow in preference to European countries and will book when the elections are over.
Thankfully the hotel I stayed at last December in Hurghada is available and the price is reasonable considering there are not so many flights.