Feb 19, 2018

CAIRO — Egyptians might soon no longer need to travel abroad to visit Disneyland, as the country inches toward the establishment of a Disneyland-style theme park in El-Alamein, northwest of Cairo.

Minister of Investment and International Cooperation Sahar Nasr, Minister of Local Development Abu Bakr El-Guindy and Executive Director of the General Authority for Investment & Free Zones Mona Zobaa attended the Feb. 1 signing ceremony for three investment contracts between Matrouh Gov. Alaa Abu Zeid and the managing director of Entertainment World in the Middle East and North Africa. The theme park, with a joint US-Saudi investment of $3.3 billion, will be built on 5,080 acres over 9-10 years. The first portion of the park will be completed and open to guests within two years.

When the Egyptian government started discussing this project with a number of investment bodies in August 2017, reactions were mixed. Commenting over social media, some Egyptians welcomed the project as a new source of entertainment for Egyptians as well as a draw for tourists from around the Middle East. Proponents also pointed out that the major investment project would create job opportunities in construction and entertainment. Critics, on the other hand, say that the country should focus on industrial or agricultural projects to address more basic needs, such as irrigation or reducing inflation.

One of the more scathing criticisms of the Disneyland-style project came from Nader Nour el-Deen, a professor of water resources and irrigation at Cairo University. In a sarcastic Facebook post on Aug. 10, 2017, just as the debate on the project opened, he wrote: “Thank God! Thank God! We will finally construct a $2.5 billion Disneyland in Egypt!! We are in dire need of it after the industrial and agricultural development we’ve achieved so far. We need it to take care of all the surplus money people have. My cabinets won't close, they're so full of money.”

Commenting on the criticism, Abu Zeid told Al-Monitor, “Development should not be limited to just one or two dimensions, such as industry and agriculture. Instead, it should run on parallel paths, and the top of the list are tourism and investment.”