El Gouna's Hotels and Restaurants Are Full During the Film Festival, the Town's Chief Executive Says
Hotels and restaurants in El Gouna are fully booked during the film festival, the town's chief executive, Mohamed Amer, told Dar Al-Maaref. He put El Gouna's capacity at 3,000 hotel rooms, with a plan to reach 4,000, and said the tourism effect reaches Hurghada as well.
15 October 2026
Hotels and restaurants in El Gouna are fully booked during the El Gouna Film Festival, the town's chief executive, Mohamed Amer, told the Egyptian outlet Dar Al-Maaref on Thursday.
Amer put El Gouna's capacity at 3,000 hotel rooms, with a plan to raise that to 4,000. He said the festival's effect reaches beyond El Gouna to Hurghada, and beyond the week of the event itself, because of the attention it draws to Egypt and the Red Sea.
He described the festival as part of the town's cultural and artistic identity, and said the continued support of the Sawiris family matters to it.
The ninth edition opened on Thursday 15 October and runs to 23 October, as we reported this week.
How firm is this?
These are the resort operator's own statements, and Dar Al-Maaref carried them as a set of summary points rather than full quotations. No occupancy figures, room rates or booking data were published with them, and no date was given for the extra 1,000 rooms.
For anyone heading to El Gouna before the festival ends, the practical point stands: book a room or a restaurant table ahead rather than on arrival.