A Bedouin Heritage Centre 18 Kilometres From Hurghada Wins a 2026 Responsible Tourism Award for Africa

A Bedouin heritage project outside Hurghada has been named a winner of the 2026 responsible tourism award for Africa, the Egyptian daily Al-Nahar reports.

The Maazah Centre for Culture and Heritage sits in the village of El Radda, 18 kilometres from Hurghada, and is presented as a model for turning Bedouin heritage into a complete visitor experience rather than a side attraction.

Who runs it

Mahmoud Attia, founder and chief executive of the company Green Planet, said the project is being carried out together with the TUI Care Foundation. Its stated aim is to protect intangible Bedouin heritage and to bring members of the tribe into the making of the tourist experience, so that the money stays with the local community and its cultural identity is kept.

What the project does

• 100 young men from the tribe are being trained in hospitality skills, tour guiding and storytelling.
• 80 women are being trained in traditional handicrafts — weaving, embroidery, palm-leaf products and leatherwork — with a space provided to display and sell what they make.

Attia said the idea rests on treating the local community as the heart of the experience rather than a helper in it: visitors live through the detail of Bedouin life and meet the customs, traditions and original crafts, in a visit he described as going beyond the usual leisure and safari trips.

The centre itself was built from natural materials taken from the desert environment, the report says, both to keep the Bedouin character of the place and to reduce its environmental footprint.

What is not yet known

The report gives no opening hours, prices, booking route or visiting arrangements, and the description of the project comes from its founder. We have not seen an independent account of the award or of the training numbers.