Safari operators in Africa realised several years ago that there were people who wanted to see the wildlife, but not shake dirt out of a sleeping bag and take a shovel to dig a loo at the end of the day. Now London-based Ancient World Tours, who specialise in ancient sites, is amongst a growing number of companies capitalising on this growing market, and offering camping holidays with a twist of glamour: glamping. I spoke to Managing Director Peter Allingham about the changing face of cultural tourism.
Although the name sounds like something a dodgy pop star would do, ‘glamping’ (glamour camping) is giving some tour operators the edge in a competitive market. Having gained popularity in parts of Europe, America and Australia, glamping is rapidly becoming a part of a tour’s itinerary in countries such as Egypt and Jordan.
Submitted by Jon Himoff on Wed, 01/27/2010 - 22:23
Zahi Hawass tells BusinessWeek that the touring exhibits including the King Tut and the Golden Age of the Pharoahs exhibition have netted Egypt $100 million USD since 2005. Considering that none of the major coffins or the ultimate, iconic piece the Death Mask are included in these shows (click here to see where they're hiding) it is quite an impressive yield for brand Tut and Egypt Inc. (King Tut's contracts are worth about as much as the world's most highly paid footballer Cristiano Ronaldo).
The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) is a long-planned new central museum complex for Cairo and Egypt, intended to replace the Egyptian Museum - founded in 1902 - as the main venue for the country's abundant heritage treasures. It'll be sited on 50 hectares of land in Giza, as a core part of a new master plan for the plateau.
The GEM project began as far back as 1992, but has been slow in coming to fruition - the foundation stone was only laid a decade later, and the museum isn't expected to be opened until as early as mid-2012. It'll be a massive structure once completed - shaped like a chamfered triangle, with a stone roof, the GEM will boast 100,000 square metres of floor space – the size of 11 football pitches – with provision for up to 100,000 artefacts at full capacity. It's expected to cost in the region of $550 million.
Safari operators in Africa realised several years ago that there were people who wanted to see the wildlife, but not shake dirt out of a sleeping bag and take a shovel to dig a loo at the end of the day. Now London-based 
