Concierge in Sharm El Sheikh
A concierge in Sharm El Sheikh: the first questions.
What it costs
Client Access membership from EUR 95 per month, annual tiers from Guild at EUR 6,000 per year, or a single trip quoted against the brief.
How the bill works
Resorts, boats, guides and drivers are passed through at cost with our fee shown separately. Nothing is buried in a package rate.
The Sinai permit
Staying inside South Sinai can qualify for a free entry permit rather than a visa. Going to Cairo or Luxor does not. Confirm for your nationality before booking.
Why Sharm not Marsa Alam
Ras Mohammed, Tiran and the Thistlegorm, plus a recompression chamber in town since 1993. For serious diving this coast is the safer one.
How much notice we need
Seven days as a minimum. Christmas, New Year, Easter and the European half-terms fill the good properties months ahead.
If the brief includes security
Run as one programme. Licensed protection from USD 900 per day through Ministry of Interior-licensed partners, never as a separate contract.
Sharm is the developed coast, and that cuts both ways.
Sharm El Sheikh is the most built-up stretch of the Egyptian Red Sea, and for a certain kind of traveller that is exactly wrong: package hotels, a nightlife strip at Naama Bay, and a volume of visitors that Marsa Alam does not have. If total quiet is the brief, we will point you south and say so plainly.
For everyone else the development is the advantage. There are direct flights from most of Europe and the Gulf, properties that genuinely are excellent rather than merely large, a recompression chamber in town, real medical facilities, and the best-protected reefs in the country an hour from the jetty. It is also the base for the Sinai interior, which most visitors never see. Send the dates and the party.
The Sinai entry permit, and the trap inside it
This is the most useful thing on this page and almost nobody explains it. Arriving at Sharm El Sheikh airport and remaining within South Sinai, meaning Sharm, Dahab, Nuweiba, Taba and St Catherine, can qualify a visitor for a free entry permit of up to fifteen days rather than a full Egyptian visa. For a short beach week that is simpler and cheaper.
The trap is what it does not cover. Anything on the mainland needs a full visa: Cairo, Luxor, Hurghada, the pyramids, all of it. Clients regularly arrive on the permit, decide mid-week that they would like to see the pyramids, and discover the problem at the airport. Entitlements also vary by nationality and the rules change, so we settle this at the booking stage and tell you to confirm your own position rather than presenting it as a guarantee. If there is any chance of a mainland day, take the full visa.
The diving, and why this coast is the safer one
Ras Mohammed at the southern tip is a national park and one of the genuinely great dive sites on earth, with walls dropping into deep blue and dense fish life. The Straits of Tiran hold a line of reefs with real current and some of the best drift diving in Egypt. The Thistlegorm, a British supply ship sunk in 1941 with her cargo of motorcycles and trucks still in the holds, is the most famous wreck dive in the world and is a long day from Sharm.
There is a second reason to dive here rather than further south, and it is unglamorous. Sharm has a hyperbaric chamber, the Hyperbaric Medical Center at Sharm el-Maya, operating since 1993 specifically for diving injuries, plus real hospitals. For a family diving daily, or for anyone pushing depth, that proximity is worth more than a slightly better reef further south, and it is the honest reason we send serious divers here rather than to Marsa Alam.
Where to stay, and what the bays actually mean
The coast divides into bays and they behave very differently. Naama Bay is the original centre, busy, walkable and where the nightlife is, which makes it right for some parties and wrong for most of ours. Ras Um Sid and the Hadaba cliffs sit above excellent shore-entry reefs. Sharks Bay and Nabq to the north are quieter and hold most of the better modern properties. Sharm El Maya and the old market are where the town is most itself.
The questions that decide a week are practical. Is there a house reef with real shore entry or is every dive a boat trip. Is the beach sand or is it a jetty over coral, because on this coast it is frequently the latter and it matters with small children. Is there a villa or a suite with private access. And how far is it from the jetty your boat actually leaves from, which is rarely the one outside your hotel.
The Sinai behind the coast
Most visitors never leave the beach, and the interior is the part of this destination that is genuinely rare. St Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai has been continuously inhabited since the sixth century and holds one of the oldest working libraries in the world; the climb up the mountain for sunrise is a serious pre-dawn undertaking rather than a stroll, and it is roughly two and a half hours by road each way before you start.
Closer in, Dahab an hour north is slower, scruffier and much liked, with the Blue Hole nearby, which is a superb dive and also the most dangerous site in Egypt when done without discipline. The desert behind Sharm gives Bedouin evenings that are worth doing once and are heavily oversold, and stargazing that is exceptional. We will tell you which of these is worth the drive for your party and which is a bus with a camel at the end.
Heat, hydration and the risk nobody quotes for
The honest hazard for most visitors to Egypt is not crime. It is the sun. Summer in Luxor and on the Red Sea regularly runs well past 40 degrees, the air is dry enough that you do not notice sweating, and the classic failure is a client on a site visit or a boat at midday who is fine until they are suddenly not. Heat exhaustion has ended far more Egyptian trips than any security incident.
It is handled by scheduling rather than by presence: early starts, the hard walking done before ten, the middle of the day spent indoors or on the water, water carried rather than bought at the third stop, and someone whose job includes noticing when an older guest has gone quiet. We build days around this by default, and we will say so when a requested schedule is simply not realistic for the season.
Protection, when a Sinai brief needs it
Most Sharm trips need no officer. The resorts are gated and scanned, tourism is policed seriously, and the coast is used to hosting people quietly. Where a recognisable client or a larger party wants cover, it runs inside the same programme rather than as a second supplier, and the useful purchase is normally a driver and sensible arrangements at the property.
Execution is by Ministry of Interior-licensed Egyptian companies under Law No. 68 of 1990, because unlicensed individuals and imported foreign details are not lawful anywhere in Egypt. Licensed close protection starts from USD 900 per day, the EUR 850 market base. See protection in Sharm El Sheikh.
Who books a concierge in Sharm El Sheikh.
Half-term and holidays
Families who need a property that works for children and a beach that is not a jetty.
Ras Mohammed and wrecks
Clients who want their own boat, the Thistlegorm done properly, and a chamber nearby.
Short breaks
Clients an hour or two away by air, often at short notice and repeatedly.
Charters and events
Groups taking a yacht or a resort wing, where coordination is the service.
Private stays
Clients who need a villa with its own access rather than a room on the main block.
Sinai and the Nile
Clients adding Cairo or Luxor, which changes the visa position entirely.
Concierge, destination management or a tour operator?
A tour operator sells a package built for a hundred people, and Sharm is one of the largest package markets in the world, so that is most of what you will find. A concierge holds the relationship and the diary. A destination manager runs the ground operation: boats, vehicles, guides, permits and the order things happen in.
Sharm rewards the third precisely because the package market is so large. The difference between a good week and an ordinary one is which bay, which property within it, which jetty your boat leaves from, and whether your entry permit matches what you actually want to do. None of that is a package decision.
Where the brief also involves protection, it runs inside the same programme. See concierge in Egypt and membership tiers.
“People arrive on the Sinai permit, decide on Wednesday to see the pyramids, and find out at the airport.”
Arrange a trip to Sharm El Sheikh
Send the dates, the party and what the trip is for, and you get one itinerary with a final rate, confidential from the first message.
EnquireWhat a concierge in Sharm El Sheikh costs.
Two routes, and the model is published rather than whispered. Membership starts at EUR 95 per month for Client Access, and annual memberships run from Guild at EUR 6,000 per year. A single trip is quoted against the brief instead.
In both cases resorts, boats, dive operators, guides and drivers are passed through at cost with our fee shown separately, never buried in a package rate. Where the brief includes protection, licensed close protection starts from USD 900 per day (the EUR 850 market base). Above the base: a chartered dive boat or yacht, a villa with private access, a car and driver held for the stay, St Catherine and desert days, and programmes running on to Cairo or the Nile. See also what a luxury concierge costs.
Algoz FZ-LLC (Trade License 5033995 | TRN 105119056700001) is licensed by RAKEZ for business-person services and lifestyle development consultancy. Concierge, itinerary and destination management are delivered directly. Where a programme includes protection, we do not provide security services ourselves: all operational execution is carried out exclusively by licensed third-party partners holding the required local permits (in Egypt: Ministry of Interior-licensed security companies operating under Law No. 68 of 1990), and unlicensed individuals and imported foreign details are not lawful anywhere in the country. Hotels, boats, guides, drivers, dive operators and tables are third-party services passed through at cost with our fee shown separately. Clients are responsible for visas, entry permits and any photography or filming permits required at antiquities sites. All activity complies with UAE law and RAKEZ regulations.