Tourism is one principal economic sector for Egypt. The Red Sea coast with its sandy beaches and appealing coral
reefs accounts for more than 60 per cent of the visitors to the country. However tourism development in Egypt is discontinuous and oscillates between rapid growth and sharp decline: On the one hand, the main hub of all-inclusive
tourism by the red sea, the city of Hurghada, has grown from a fishing village to a booming resort town of 180,000 inhabitants within 20 years. On the other hand, and in contrast to such massive growth of tourism, dogmatic approaches and the influence of terrorism heavily impact the number of tourists. In the aftermath of the Revolution in 2011, tourism numbers plummeted by over 37 per cent. Such discontinuity and uncertainty in touristic transformation are at the core of explorations in the urban design studio.
A thorough analysis of how mass tourism has influenced the spatial, ecological, social, and political transformation of the Red Sea coast is our starting point for an inquiry into possible futures of touristic development of the region. In a next step, based on fieldwork (End Nov 2018), the studio develops scenarios of how uncertainties and discontinuous dynamics of both shrinkage and growth affect touristic sites and urban development of the Red Sea coast. We will inquire in developing processes of various scales of sociospatial urbanization tackling the following question: How can Red Sea cities adapt to and tackle sizable transformations affected by socio-economic and political factors of the tourism sector? The excursion to the Red Sea Region will be conducted in the context of the DAAD/ BMZ-funded research project RealCityLab (2016-2019) in collaboration with TU Campus El Gouna and Helwan University. Travel expenses will be partially supported through RealCityLab.