Your thoughts about visiting the Egyptian Red Sea

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genuinely concerned about finding work for its people it would kick out the many illegal freelance instructors/ dive shop managers eking out a living on tourist visas (no work permits). Sadly there is no sign of this happening this side of the parliamentary elections in October- too bad!

They have and have had work permit purges before (along with the cash-cow foreigner. They need them, they know they need them and the ludicrous price of work permits.
The main problem they'll have is by large the standard of the locals quite simply isn't good enough. Yes there are exceptions but in general a LOT of the locals working have no idea of training standards, guiding standards or even simple dive skills. People are put off by terrible guides or instructors or unsafe practices. Add that to the corruption (buy your CDWS or just get one without any assessment if its your cousin/friends friend on duty at the checkpoint etc) and it means that the standards MUST be massively improved before the diving industry can rely on the locals. If they were to switch to that model now they'd remove pretty much all the diving tourists from western countries that want safety, standards or good quality. The MoT know this but there is no will to improve *and enforce* consistent standards meaning the problem won't be addressed.

The problem of really crap locals with a bought or just bribed CDWS breaking marine park rules, training standards and safety just yelling at foreigners (legal permits) "its my country, i'll do what you want, i have a cousin/brother/relative in the army or police and i'll get you deported" for every complaint needs to be addressed.

 

[Lingfield]

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My general point was that ex pat dive industry pros in Egypt are detached from the realities of the recession in the west. There is high unemployment, lack of opportunities for young people, job insecurity, public sector pay freezes and inflation that won't go away.
Hey, unlike the illegals working in Egypt , some of us don't get paid cash in hand and have to contribute to the state by paying taxes!
The ex pats need to wake up, smell the coffee and realise that westerners don't have the £ to take lots of hols for the time being.
If they can afford to go away they are choosy and some of them have a perception (justified or not) that Egypt is lawless and questionable as to who is actually running the country. These people just book elsewhere.

I thought you might bite about illegal westerners working in the Egyptian dive industry.! There are numerous threads on this. Clearly Egyptians CAN understand and speak English. They fly planes, run businesses and make a living in tourism (including diving). If the boot was on the other foot and Egyptians tried to work illegally in the EU without work permits they would be swiftly kicked out. Egypt should be training up its own instructors and DMs, getting them all up to standard and helping with the fees etc. It won't of course, which is why it will remain a third world country with high unemployment and terrible poverty.

We hear a lot about what the ex pat illegals bring to the party but much of it is a load of self justifying baloney. If tourists want to visit Egypt then they should accept its culture, attitudes and beliefs and NOT try to impose western values. Sure most Egyptian tourist workers are young men - the tourists should accept this. Do they really need diving instruction off a pneumatic western blonde female? Whatever next? Close the mosques and turn Christian? Get the Bedouin to recycle waste? Get camel drivers to poop scoop the droppings?

Many dive centres are western owned and the cash just makes its way west. The illegals pay no tax. Sure they spend a bit on beer and food, but they shouldn't overvalue themselves.

 

[Tigerman]

Yes, I agree, recycling waste is a HORRIBLE idea..
I also agree theres absolutely NO "westerners" left that has any money for vacations, thats why all the dive boats run empty every day...

The fact of the matter is that youre WRONG. Theres plenty of people who have plenty of money and go on vacations and they worry a whole lot more about riots being blown out of proportions in the newspapers than spending 1500-2000 euros for a couple of weeks worth of vacation..

 

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My general point was that ex pat dive industry pros in Egypt are detached from the realities of the recession in the west. There is high unemployment, lack of opportunities for young people, job insecurity, public sector pay freezes and inflation that won't go away.

Diving staff are hardly unaffected by that. They are paid on a commission basis usually ranging from 30% to 100% so there really is no job security and income is highly variable from one month to the next. Its not some secure highly paid job. Its a very low security job that pays very little, you operate at a loss some months.

Hey, unlike the illegals working in Egypt , some of us don't get paid cash in hand and have to contribute to the state by paying taxes!

As do legal workers with permits. Ive also yet to meet a single Egyptian employed as diving staff that isn't paid cash in hand or pays any tax or national insurance type contributions either! Or a local dive centre that puts all trade through the books.
I notice in your crusade against illegal workers you neglected to mention that the CDWS and Ministry of Labour agreed to a 3 month period where foreigners would NOT be required to have work permits starting April 28th?

The ex pats need to wake up, smell the coffee and realise that westerners don't have the £ to take lots of hols for the time being.

Tourism is down but thats almost entirely due to the instability. Would you suggest the westerners all go home and claim unemployment benefit instead of actually working?!

If they can afford to go away they are choosy and some of them have a perception (justified or not) that Egypt is lawless and questionable as to who is actually running the country. These people just book elsewhere.

Correct, Egypt, Sinai in particular has a bad security issue at the moment. It was FAR more stable under Mubarack - even a lot of Egyptians in the tourism field are now admitting that. Until they can fix the massive police corruption and implement security again its going to get worse.

I thought you might bite about illegal westerners working in the Egyptian dive industry.! There are numerous threads on this.

Im not a fan of illegal workers. Especially as i paid a sizeable amount of money for a work permit annually when there. However, i notice yet again you fail to mention the current MoL and CDWS work permit exemption introduced.

Clearly Egyptians CAN understand and speak English.

Some do, some don't. Some barely do. I can show you literally hundreds of customer survey questionairres where people have expressed concern about the language issues from some of the local instructors and many hundreds of response from people listing one reason they went to that centre was to be taught by an instructor who was from and spoke the same language as them fluently (ie a foreigner).

The GOOD egyptians are already working for dive centres. They're great, they dont need ratios, expensive permits or any other red tape so are great for a centre. The awful standard ones are the people making the most noise and shouting about being denied work. In other words, the good ones already have work, the bad ones that shouldn't be working in the first place dont but arent happy about it.

The standards off a lot of them are terrible. Most of us have photo and video collection along with incident forms and customer surveys showing just how awful a lot are. We also have plenty of evidence and documentation showing the CDWS routinely ignores all complaints about specific centres or people depending on who they know.

It won't of course, which is why it will remain a third world country with high unemployment and terrible poverty.

It will remain a 3rd world country for as long as every single level of society remains inherently corrupt. It always was bad and post 2011 is getting far worse.

If tourists want to visit Egypt then they should accept its culture, attitudes and beliefs and NOT try to impose western values.

We're not talking western values. We're talking diving standards. The specific training and safety standards mandated by training agencies, the level of quality people expect. The standards that in theory are mandatory there although are ignored by the governing body. People don't want to go somewhere to be taught diving courses with half the skills missing by an instructor who couldnt perform the skills themselves then be taken on a non-sea worthy boat with a non-qualified captain to drive it dangerously and have a poor and unsafe time. Thats nothing to do with values and beliefs - its the mandatory training standards that all instructors and DMs sign to AGREE to abide by. Basic, safe, good quality and consistent teaching.
Briefing a group of snorkellers stood on a reef isn't a local belief. Teaching a course without CESA or reg skills isnt a belief system. Taking people below their certified depth and into deco isnt local culture. Prodding, picking up and antagonising marine life is not local culture.

Women dont want to go on holiday to get harrassed and groped because its "local culture".

You seem to have some big thing about "illegals" without actually understanding how many that are or what they do. You also assume that the local population pay tax, do proper honest book keeping and so on which is a massive error. Yes the illegals pay no tax. Neither does a single one of the legal locals in many areas! Foreign also does not mean illegal. Its quite possible albeit expensive to obtain a work permit to work legally. At the moment its not needed because the government says so. Foreigners are leaving, they KNOW the foreigners are needed and the industry cant survive without them hence the recent exemption.