Hurghada Hotels Expect 85-90% Occupancy in October After Three Million Arrivals in Eight Months

Hurghada expects hotel occupancy of 85 to 90 percent in October as the winter season opens, according to Mohamed Falla of the Red Sea Tourism Investors Association, speaking to Al-Watan.

He said inbound traffic would start climbing from next month on the strength of current and forward bookings, that arrivals over the first eight months of 2026 were up between 2 and 5 percent on the same period last year, and that most visitors in the final quarter would come from Europe. The last three months of the year should be busy, he said, particularly around Christmas in December.

The underlying figures come from the travel and tourism companies' chamber in Hurghada, rendered in English as the Egyptian Travel Agents Associations. It reported that Hurghada airport received about three million tourists between January and the end of August 2026, an increase of roughly 3 percent year on year, from about 50 nationalities, according to Al-Masry Al-Youm and Egypt Independent.

By market over those eight months:

• Germany — about 825,800
• Russia — about 638,800
• Poland — about 303,000
• United Kingdom — about 245,700
• Czechia — about 127,000

Sayed al-Gabry, who heads the association in Hurghada, said that spread across some 50 markets gives the sector resilience if travel from any single country falls away, and credited the city's beaches, diving, snorkelling, boat trips and desert safaris for keeping it on the global map.

Tourism Daily News reported separately that the occupancy map is already shifting with the start of the school year: the Egyptian families who filled hotels through July and August are going home, and European arrivals are taking their place, supported by the international flights landing daily at Hurghada airport.

For anyone still planning a trip, the practical point is that rooms get scarcer from October. For residents, it means the winter season is starting on schedule.