ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the convoluted planning process of a luxury hotel in the coastal area of Taba. Planned during the Israeli occupation of the Sinai Peninsula (1967–1982) but opened after Israel withdrew from most of Sinai after the 1978 peace treaty with Egypt, the hotel was on land contested between the countries. Both Israel and the hotel’s developer tried—unsuccessfully—to renegotiate the border between the states, using the hotel as a mechanism of geopolitical maneuvering, making it a particular case study for the way tourism was used as a mechanism of colonization and geopolitical strategy. The hotel was also the first in the peninsula to cater to the new demands for luxury leisure tourism, which made it retrospectively a sign of the beginning of Sinai’s neoliberal era, developed under Egyptian jurisdiction. The hotel’s threshold position between the countries placed it at the intersection of several forces, not only diplomatic, but economic, environmental, and conceptual, influencing the hotel’s planning and reality.
