Red Sea prepares to allocate land for worker housing in Hurghada and Ras Ghareb
Governor Walid El-Barqi says tourism, hotel, industrial and energy projects could be given plots to build housing for their own staff. The allocation rules have not been set yet.
24 October 2026
Red Sea Governorate is preparing its first trial of allocating land to tourism, hotel and industrial projects so they can build housing for their own staff, starting in Hurghada and Ras Ghareb, Al-Masry Al-Youm reported.
Governor Walid El-Barqi said the aim is to tie expansion in hotels, tourism and new-energy investment to the basic needs of the people who work in those projects, housing first, at a time when demand for flats in the governorate's tourist and economic cities is pushing rents up.
He said housing near the project sites would also cut daily travel for staff at hotels, tourist facilities and industrial plants, where work runs across different shifts.
The first phase covers the two cities the governorate calls its main centres of economic activity: Hurghada, where hotel and tourism employment keeps growing, and Ras Ghareb, a centre for petroleum, industrial and new-energy work.
The rules are still open
The governorate and the bodies involved are still to set the allocation conditions, which companies and entities qualify, the plot sizes, and the building and use conditions meant to keep the land to its stated purpose.
El-Barqi said that if the trial works and its controls are completed, it could serve as a model for other cities in the governorate, particularly those seeing investment expansion and rising numbers of workers.