How to Choose a Luxury Egypt Tour Company: Twelve Questions to Ask

Choose the luxury Egypt tour company that answers three questions in writing before you pay: its Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities license number and category, which you can check on the Egyptian Travel Agents Association register; the hotels, room types and any Nile vessel, by name; and who will guide you, with a Ministry license and a place on the Tour Guides Syndicate register.

Twelve questions to ask any luxury Egypt tour company

Send these in one email. A company that plans private luxury trips should be able to answer all of them in writing, before you pay anything. Each question comes with what a good answer looks like.

1. What is your license number, and which category is it? A good answer gives a number you can find on the Egyptian Travel Agents Association register, with Category A, the category that covers organizing tour programs. A Category B license covers ticketing and booking only.
2. Which hotels will we stay in, and in which room types? A good answer names each hotel and the room type for every stop. A phrase such as a five-star hotel in Luxor describes a hotel; it does not name one.
3. Are those hotels open on our dates? A good answer shows the company follows hotel status. The Winter Palace in Luxor, for example, is closed for restoration until 2027, while the Old Cataract in Aswan is open as renovation work continues.
4. Which Nile vessel, and is it shared? A good answer names the ship or the dahabiya and says who else is on board. A Nile cruise ship is shared with other guests, and a dahabiya is shared with its other guests unless your group charters the whole boat.
5. Who will guide us, and is the guide licensed? A good answer confirms a Ministry of Tourism license and membership of the Tour Guides Syndicate, and says which language the guide will speak.
6. What does private mean on this trip? A good answer separates land from water. On land the guide, the vehicle and the driver should be for your group alone; on a shared ship, the guided visits can still be private.
7. What exactly is included, and what is not? A good answer is a written list on both sides. Look for domestic flights, tips, international flights, the visa and optional tours by name.
8. Is the full price in writing, with the terms? A good answer is one proposal that states the full price and the terms together, so you can compare like with like.
9. When is anything booked, and when do we pay? A good answer is clear about the moment of commitment: a request should not be a booking, and nothing should be booked until you accept a written proposal and it is confirmed in writing.
10. What can change before we confirm? A good answer says the length, the hotels and the pace can be adjusted before you confirm, subject to availability.
11. Is any special access promised? A good answer is careful. Visits beyond the standard ticket need separate permits, so they belong in a proposal only once confirmed in writing, never as a promise in advance.
12. Who is our contact, before and during the trip? A good answer names who follows the planning, who meets you at the airport and who you call during your stay.

A company that answers all twelve in one reply has done most of the planning work already. To see what such a written proposal covers, step by step, read how a tailor-made Egypt trip is planned. The other decisions, from the season to the Nile vessel, are in the guide to luxury travel in Egypt.

How to check a license on the ETAA register

Egyptian law requires the license: no tourism company may carry out the activities in the tourism companies law without a license from the Ministry of Tourism (Law No. 38 of 1977, Article 3). The ministry is now the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. The public place to check is the register of the Egyptian Travel Agents Association (ETAA).

1. Ask the company for its exact registered name and its license number.
2. Open the ETAA companies index. The index is in Arabic. The index lists the region, the governorate, the company name and the license number.
3. Search for the company by name in the drop-down list, or browse by governorate.
4. Open the company's page. It shows the category, the license number and the founding date.
5. Compare the name and the number with the ones on the proposal you received. If they differ, ask why before you pay.

A license on the register is the minimum, not the whole test. It shows that the company exists and what its category allows; the twelve questions show how it plans.

What Category A means

The same law sorts licenses into three categories (Law No. 38 of 1977, Article 2), and the ETAA register records the category on each company's page.

A private trip with hotels, a Nile vessel, guides and transfers in one program is a tour program, so Category A is the category to look for.

How tour guides are licensed

Under Law No. 121 of 1983 (Article 2), guiding may be practiced only by someone who holds a license from the Ministry of Tourism and is entered on the register of the Tour Guides Syndicate. The same law defines a tour guide as the person who explains and guides tourists for pay at archaeological sites, museums or exhibitions, and it says no tourism company may deal with a guide who is not a syndicate member.

So ask two things about the guide: whether the guide is licensed and a syndicate member, and which language the guide speaks. On the journeys of this site, the guide speaks English, Portuguese, German or Spanish.

What to expect in writing

Before you accept anything, a careful company sends a written proposal you can check line by line. It names:

• the route;
• the hotels and the room types;
• any Nile vessel;
• what is included and what is not;
• the full price;
• the terms.

Read the Not included list as closely as the hotels. On this site, domestic flights, for example Cairo to Luxor or Aswan to Cairo, are not included in any journey and are booked and paid separately; tips are not included either. Whichever company you choose, those two lines should be in writing before you pay.

Who books the journeys on this site

Bookings on this site are made with Egypt Today Travel, a travel agency licensed by Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Category A, license no. 1947, with its office in Nasr City, Cairo. It has been on the Egyptian Travel Agents Association register since September 2009, and its register entry can be checked the same way as any other. More about the company is on the About page.

To see the questions answered on a real trip, take one of the luxury Egypt journeys as a starting point and send a request. Sending a request costs nothing and is not a booking.