Aldau Development: Modern Hospitality Meets Millennia-Old Treasures

Aldau Development has earned a reputation for excellence in both Real Estate and Hospitality, with developments in Egypt and the United Kingdom. Their strategic partnerships with marquee brands such as Hyatt International, IHG, and Deutsche Hospitality have further cemented their standing internationally. 

Boston University School of Hospitality and Questrom School of Business designed a customized Executive Education program for Aldau -- a testament to Aldau's commitment to leadership and entrepreneurship.

In this podcast, Dean Arun Upneja talks with Tarek El Masry, Chief Operating Officer, and Mario Larese, Director of Development & Technical Services, about Aldau's vision for bringing excellence in hospitality to real estate projects. 

The “Distinguished” podcast is produced by Boston University School of Hospitality Administration.

Host: Arun Upneja, Dean
Producer: Mara Littman, Director of Corporate and Public Relations
Sound Engineer and Editor: Andrew Hallock
Graphic Design: Rachel Hamlin, Marketing Manager

Music: “Airport Lounge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Transcript

Arun: Welcome to the Distinguished Podcast. Have you ever dreamed of going to Egypt? Well, you are in luck today. We have two exceptional leaders from Aldau Development in Egypt with us today, Tarek El Masry, Chief Operating Officer, and Mario Larese, Director of Development and Technical Services. Aldau is a leader in both real estate and hospitality, with best-in-class developments in Egypt, and the United Kingdom, and hopefully expanding to many more places. I'm Arun Upneja, Dean of the Boston University School of Hospitality, and I am excited to interview these two amazing gentlemen today.

Aldau has earned a reputation for excellence in both real estate and hospitality, with developments in Egypt and the United Kingdom. Their strategic partnerships with marquee brands such as Hyatt International, IHG, and Deutsche Hospitality have further cemented their standing internationally. Aldau's vision in partnering with Boston University to create a customized executive education program showcases their dedication to leadership and innovation.

I've had the privilege of witnessing first-hand how Tarek and Mario have gained valuable insights into entrepreneurship, hospitality, and real estate development through the program. It's a pleasure to have Tarek and Mario with us today in the studio, and I look forward to sharing their experiences and insights with you, along with Aldau's vision for the future. So, welcome.

Tarek: Thank you very much for such a great introduction.

Mario: Thank you.

Arun: So, I was really very impressed when I visited the Hyatt Cairo. You have beautifully blended modern luxury with Egypt's rich historical culture of hospitality. Many times during my stay in Cairo, I heard the term Egyptian hospitality. So, how do you strike that balance between contemporary design and honoring Egypt's heritage?

Tarek: This is Tarek El Masry. First of all, thank you very much for your hospitality. We are really happy to be here today. Coming to Hyatt Regency, Cairo West, it's a quite good story for us. This hotel was built during the COVID. It took from us one year and a half. Everyone was working from home. We were focused working in the hotel, doing our best and almost to open on time, which we did. The hotel is well-designed. The hotel is modern, having the twist from the Egyptian boat to a modern and nice culture that anybody is coming. The hotel even colors is welcome. We have a quite nice opening, because we are the only modern hotel in this area, in Giza area, which is the pyramids area. We are overlooking pyramids. And the good thing in this hotel, after three months, we got an award from Hyatt, and we got an award from TripAdvisor to be number one in the destination in terms of guest satisfaction.

Arun: I loved it. When I went there, it was the pyramids were pretty close by. And again, I was just impressed with the level of service that is there at the hotel. So very impressive. I want to talk about this new hotel that is going to be opening very soon. So can you tell us what is special about this new Hyatt Centric that you're opening, Mario, and particularly with reference to art?

Mario: Absolutely. This is Mario speaking. Well, during the development phase and especially the concept, the preliminary concept phase, we spoke to Hyatt, and they explained to us what the Centric is. The Hyatt Centric Hotel is what it stands for. So it was supposed to be central, centric in the city. We wanted to add on that though, because we were very impressed.We just hired basically a director of art and she's very well known in the art scene in Cairo. So we decided to make it an art hotel and we add this with the central location and in Cairo and in Egypt especially, there's actually a big art scene, a lot of talented artists, from paintings to 3D works to statues, whatever you, tons. So we added that all into the interior design and into the public area design.

So when you enter now, you have in the lobby, for example, it's full of statues that are inspired by the actually 7 pillars of Cairo, of Egypt, sorry, of Egypt, which are, I have to put, which is Islam, it's Greek, it's Roman. So we added basically a lot of local artists during the design development to have their input in the public areas, but also in the rooms. So, for example, on top of the headboard, we have different pictures and paintings.

Inside the room, we have a baboon, which is basically the baboon from the temples that stands with the hands up and welcomes the people that enter the temples and the sun in the morning. So this we have at the entrance of the rooms. And then, of course, in the pool area, we have statues from some local artists in the restaurant. And now Tarek, with his operations team, he added a lot of other touches that really make the difference.

Arun: So have you already handed it over to Tarek, or is it still close to being handing over?

Mario: We are working together now as a team on this. The construction is finishing the last items. Tarek and his teams are absolutely helping.

And from our side, we only have to do the fire life safety commissions. And then it's all in his hands as he opened the regency to open the Centric now.

Arun: Many hotels in the US might have a dog or a cat in the lobby. Are you going to have a baboon walking around in the lobby?

Mario: I wish. I'd be the first one to say we need to do that, but I don't think that's allowed. That's not a good idea. Okay, let's skip that. Tarek.

Tarek: Yes, second baby in Cairo. Newborn by 15th of October. I have a full team working since three months now to make it happen. We are doing our utmost to show Cairo the first art hotel in Egypt. It will be a plus for our group. It's a nice modern hotel, very colorful. We are using the orange, the yellow, the blue, even the restaurant with nice art lobby. When you enter the lobby behind the reception, we have our famous, famous singer, 1960, 1970. Her name is Omuka Sumits, an Arabic singer. We have a full picture behind the reception. We have really different service. Different service than what we have in Regency. Different uniform. We even, from the art, we got to idea that we really have the uniform coming from art for the staff. The hotel is very welcoming. The hotel's swimming pool is really nice. It's 310 rooms. It will be the first hotel having loft and having also swimming suites. Cairo is missing such a nice, nice modern hotel. We are trying to go out of the typical city hotels to a more resorty hotel to really feel fun. The clients are coming for an experience. The clients are coming for culture. So they will have the first art hotel that you really see a story behind the hotel. So we are looking forward to receive the first client on 15th of October. And this will be our second Hyatt hotel in Cairo.

Arun: The first art hotel in Egypt and I'm assuming the first art Hyatt-centric as well, probably.

Tarek: Yes, inspired by art.

Mario: Inspired by art. And furthermore, we are now working with our real estate division to also have branded residences in our complex. So next to the Hyatt-centric and the Hyatt Regency, we will develop about 700 residences, and we will brand them centric and Regency. So this is all in the works right now and we hope that we will finalize these ones by the end of the year and then we will start building the residences.

Arun: So will these be rented out as or will they be sold to individual people and then they can sort of hand it back to you for management in case they don't want to come and stay?

Tarek: We sold it out and the clients will give it to us back for renting pools. We as a hotel, we will look after service, service apartments in terms of, in all regards, housekeeping, food and beverage, laundry. So it will be the first service apartments for Hyatt in Cairo. And good that Mario opened the subject because Aldau Development is not only hospitality division, but also a hospitality and real estate construction division. So we usually, we own, we construct, and we manage. With a third-party franchise. So we choose in Cairo the third party, which is Hyatt, and we choose the Steigenberger for Horkaday Hotels. And in London, we choose IHG to have it as a franchise and we operate. So we are operating all. Now it's the turn of real estate. We bring hospitality to real estate, which is really different in Cairo as a slogan. Usually, every investor in Cairo for real estate is selling apartments and mentioning that he will build a hotel. We are doing it vice versa. We build the hotels, we are well-known hotels, and now we are starting to sell real estate. So we do have 1,000 apartments in Horkaday called Aldau Hyatt. And we have another one, Aldau Strand, which is 350 apartments facing the sea. And in Cairo, as Mario just mentioned, we are coming up with Hyatt Residence, Hyatt Centric and Hyatt Regency. In order that we promote it to Cairo, and Cairo will see also something new, because the hotels already exist.

Arun: Okay, so with Egypt's Vision 2030 aiming for sustainable growth, how has Aldau aligned its development strategies with these national goals? 

Mario: So, how do we align that? We have basically, we developed something we called Aldau Sustainability. So we have a handbook and the brochure that we distributed to our staff and as well as our partners. For example, Hyatt, when we did the Hyatt Regency Cairo West and the Hyatt Centric Cairo West, they asked us what is your sustainability efforts. So we showed them our brochure, what we were doing and how we implemented it into the project. As Tarek knows in his hotels, he has induction cookers wherever possible to save on energy, to save on gas. We have steam boilers that are really energy efficient for the laundries. We have in Hurghada, at the top of our Aldau International Conference Center, is plastered with photovoltaic cells which directly feed into our air conditioning units and saves us a lot of energy there. Then we, in the new hotels, we are now working to get landscaping, which means that we are only using local plants. We don't import anything, everything is local. And you know, Cairo is hot, Hurghada is hot, so we save a lot of water. The water that we do use to fertilize the gardens, and the grass is basically filtered water from our sewage tanks, which go straight in there and are made safe to be used there.

So we don't go into the regular water grid. We have in Hurghada, we have lakes, actually, in our property, which we use not regular water, but we use the seawater, which will be pumped from the ground up to go into those lakes. And then, of course, I mean, we have low flow faucets. We have low flow toilets. We have any, in all the corridors for the staff areas, we have automatic lights so that the lights always turn off when nobody is there working. And yeah, basically, I mean, I can give you a couple more. The new hotel we're doing now in Hougada, a Sultan project, what we are, another 400, 500 room hotel, resort. We decided with the interior designer and the architects to use only local materials, which means we will not import from China. So we have basically CO2 consumption completely down. All the interior was specifically tailored to be made in Egypt by local consultants, by local businesses. So this is also good for the local communities. And it's going to be a fantastic project because it also then gives us, in the interior design, we have the heritage of Egypt incorporated because the lamps will be made there from the copper manufacturers in Cairo, that are in the Kana el Khalili. All the furniture with wood comes straight from Cairo. It's built down in Hougada. And then we bought, for example, I don't know how many cubic meters are, but tons of old railroad slippers from the old Cairo Railroad.

And we just stored them. And now we're using them to manufacture our own tables for our restaurants and the interior of some of the rooms for the new projects.

Arun: Wow, you have an unbelievably extensive effort in the sustainability area. That's very impressive. One question, I just want to follow up on that. Lakes, you said in Argara Resort that you pump the seawater. So then those lakes are all saline lakes, and they're salt watered?

Mario: No, it gets filtered. It gets filtered and then it goes straight into... I mean, they're not really big lakes. We have a gold course, but it depends in between.

So it comes up, it gets filtered, because the salt will block our pumps.

Right.

And then it gets basically washed back down again.

Oh, very good. Very good. Okay.

Arun: I want to talk about tourism in Egypt and who is visiting.

Where are most of the international visitors coming from? Are they... Which countries are they from? So which parts of the region, Tariq?

Tarek: surprisingly... Cairo, number one nationality is Americans. The second nationality is Spanish. Uh, third nationality is Chinese, Japanese. Uh, you know, Cairo is different nationalities than Horgada and Chalmershikh. For instance, we have our hotels in Horgada, which is the Steigenberger Dau Resort. Uh, our Horgada hotels, there are three hotels, uh, Steigenberger Dau, small, luxurious at the beach. We have Steigenberger Akomagic Family Hotel, with aqua parks, 720 rooms. And we have also Steigenberger Pure Lifestyle, which is adults only, 135 suites. Um, mainly, mainly Germans. Uh, 70% of the hotels are Germans. Uh, we have, uh, different nationalities. Uh, we get used to, uh, in the 208. Golden years for us is 210. 24 different nationalities under one roof. Uh, Russians was playing very well. Uh, half of the hotel was also Russians. However, once 2011 incident happened, the Russians is getting less. But till now, it's one of our nationalities. Uh, we have in Horghada also Polish. Uh, we have, uh, Armenian. We have UK is, uh, the third nationality mix. Uh, Egyptians is this year, year to date, number one nationality. We have a lot of Egyptians coming to us during summer. Uh, Cairo also we have a lot of, uh, Egyptians due to the weddings and the events.

So they are getting used to come and stay with us, uh, during their weddings on Friday weekends. Uh, we do have also, uh, uh, like a branch with an offer, special offer for the clients. So they are coming to stay one night in Cairo. So let's say that we have different nationalities, but we are depending on Germans, uh, on Horgada and American and Spanish in Cairo. This is our feeder markets. 

Arun: So I'm assuming the Germans that are coming to the Stein and Burger resorts on the Red Sea and Horgada. Yes, they are mostly coming for leisure. What about the Americans in Cairo? Is that leisure?

Tarek: It's leisure. It's a small culture. Most of the, most of the Cairo, Cairo is three nights stay. Horgada is from seven to 14 nights leisure. Cairo Hotels, usually we have something called Tour 3. The Tour 3 that people is going to Luxor, Aswan, Zen Cairo. So they are usually having a full tour coming to Cairo for pyramids, coming to Cairo to see the museum. And also we will, according to the Ministry of Tourism and our delegations, we are expecting a big increase once we open our new great museum, because you need to have, you need to spend like three days to finish this. So we are also expecting to have an extensive length of stay in Cairo, instead of three nights to be four nights, one more night, that the clients really have the time to visit more.

Arun: Interesting, okay. So, and I'm happy to hear that you have a big domestic sector now. Can you talk about labor costs and how does that make a difference to the service?

Tarek: I have to say that since I joined this company 19 years now working with them, we are looking after employees. We are looking for stability. I have a turnover of 3%, which is very good in terms of 1,550 employees in Horghada. We are talking about Cairo Hotel is almost 420 employees. We develop our employees, we train them, we look after their career paths, we promote from within. We are trying to do our best in terms of everyone have his choice to move from Horghada to Cairo for any new openings. So we are really looking after our staff, and we usually do a lot of appreciation for them in all regards. So our staff is well maintained. The clients know them very well. Repeaters especially, we have like 25% to 30% repeaters in Horghada. So they really look after our staff and the staff are always happy. And Egyptians, I will not say that because I'm Egyptian, but Egyptians are friendly. Egyptians like to serve as well as they work from heart. And in our hospitality business, if you didn't work from heart, you will never reach anything. So we really work from heart, and we really like what we are doing. So the most important for Egyptians, you appreciate the feel that you are your backbone, you are backbone for the staff. You are looking after them in all regards, in bonuses, in incentive. So this is why we have a stable employment.

Arun: So when I was there, when I spoke to so many people, this commitment of Aldau to its employees came through very clearly in all my discussions with so many people. As an example, what happened during the pandemic when everyone else around was laying off staff and firing them? What was going on in Aldau?

Tarek: Our owner, engineer Basel Samia Saad, he decided to ensure that there is no cut of salaries for all our employees in 2011. We didn't find any employer. Even usually when you have a three-month trial for any new employer, we didn't cut. We left the employee to work and continue working with us. Our owner really is looking after employees. He's looking after management. He said very clear, all these staff were supporting me in good times. I need to support them in the bad times. So he is one of the few owners who didn't cut any from our staff. He kept the salaries 100 percent.

Arun: So clearly, he must have taken a lot of losses during that time, but that just speaks to his commitment to his staff and the people who are working for him.

Tarek: I see these losses. I see this is very smart. He makes almost 2,000 employees loyal to the company. We are proud, while we are mentioning it today in 2024, what we did. And we are really happy to have this story, successful story with us. He was really smart. He took it. And now, it's returned back to him. Because now, as I mentioned in the beginning, it's a 3% turnover, which is a very low percentage in Egypt.

Arun: Right. That is absolutely incredibly low percentage of turnover. So, there is something else that you mentioned that is promoting from within. And I'm going to return to that in a couple of minutes. But I want to ask Mario about what the other opportunities and areas of growth are for the company. What's next for Aldau?

Mario: Well, we do have a couple of projects in pipeline. I mean, we're working now on a mega project next to the pyramids. We have, Aldau is a subsidiary of Suncrete. And the Suncrete headquarters is very close to the pyramids of Giza. And basically on the opposite side of the new museum, which is due to open hopefully next year, if not this year. And, well, we are planning on developing a hotel there for about 700, 800 rooms when it's finished. But phase one will be probably one tower with around 350 rooms. The brand is yet to be decided, but it's a mega project with a convention center, with a food court, with shopping malls, with a casino, with everything, in a really strategic location. We do have other projects around us, the world as well.

We have one really big project in London. We own the holiday in London West there. We did get planning consent from the mayor already to basically demolish it and build two towers there, one with 47 stories and one with 54 stories. Well, we also want to do a Hyatt Centric at this point. We also have the variable agreement to make it a Hyatt Centric, plus another 702 built-to-rent apartments. Which London is in dire need right now, as the housing is a big catastrophe, if I may say so.

Arun: Right, yeah, and not just London, but all major cities in the world are. And I know in Boston and New York and all of the cities, there is not enough housing. So that is amazing.

That's a huge, big influx of apartments.

Mario: Exactly, and apart from that, we are planning to expand. We are always looking for new projects. We were looking in Greece, we were looking in Spain, we were looking in Hungary. Also in Germany for a little while, then of course London, if anything else comes. And as we discussed this morning, maybe Boston now.

Arun: I hope so too.

Mario: As we really like the city. But no, we are open for any developments that come to our tables and we evaluate anything that is there. If, you know, we go through, thanks to you now, more detailed feasibilities.

A nice presentation to get the attention of the owner, of the chairman, to make sure we get to go ahead.

Arun: Fantastic. So, Tarek, I want to come back to, you were part of this inaugural Boston University's executive education program. You both were participants there. So my question is, how did that program help you to expand your thinking, our leadership skills, our real estate skills? I mean, what did that do for you?

Tarek: First of all, finance played a good role. We're usually using our laptops in equations. Easy to do. But we didn't know really how it works. So it was for us very good to understand from where this number is coming and what's behind. So it was very interesting to understand this. Plus, the second course, while we are understanding our personality as well, other personalities, from how you can figure out. It will support us a lot during our interviews for our new hiring. It will support us a lot for our currently team member. For me, this is my two mains took home from such a great training which we got in Boston University.

Arun: Fantastic. But you did mention that you promote from within.

Tarek: Yes.

Arun: So, what kind of trainings are they only getting on the job training, or how are you sort of helping them expand their skill set and their management and leadership skills as you are promoting them?

Tarek: I learned it from this company. I started in this company as an Assistant Front Office Manager in 2006, and today I'm running the show in 2024. Our owner invested on me.

I have a CEO who is also looking after me. I got Econel courses, Revenue Management, full course for two years, and a full Hospitality Master's degree for two years as well. So I learned from them how I can keep the employment, how I can upgrade our management.

Therefore, I start to have 10 to 15 senior management from each hotel, looking after them, also offering them Econel courses in terms of online courses, wherever it's needed. We selected a few good employments in terms of supervisor level and assistant department heads in order to start looking after their weaknesses and provide the right courses for them, to move them forward to be department heads. So I have a lot of cases who is starting as an operator.

Today, he is a front office manager of Hyatt. I have a supervisor at the desk who is also now as an EEM for one of our hotels. A food and beverage supervisor being now a food and beverage manager. A restaurant manager who is now a hotel manager. So we really look after them in terms of which training courses you need. For us, Boston this year was a plus. For me also to have the knowledge where I can start now looking after the new management of the hotels to do the same what we did. So, you know, it's usually life is a learning course. So we learn, we start giving our team the same what we did. So for us, our goal now next year, that we have a pool of people from the management having the same courses which we did. We have still a group working now in Econel online. They were finished by 2027. They have two years and a half only concentrated. So this is the only way that you can retain the people and ensuring that they are continuing success with you. And always every employer or every senior management is looking for his second step. So if he feels comfortable that he will reach it by learning, then he continues working with you.

Arun: That is excellent. Continuous investment in education and development of the staff is critical to success of any company. Okay. So what I want to do is I want to have a little bit of a fun to wrap things up. So I'm going to ask you some quick questions and you can take turns answering, but let's start with Mario. I know that you just landed today morning.

And so when you do get a little bit of time, what is one thing that you have been wanting to do in Boston? What is the first thing you'll do in your free time? Well, as I discussed with Tarek this morning, we need to go for a lobster somewhere.

Okay.

Mario: I definitely would like to have a good Atlantic lobster.

Arun: Excellent. And I know, Tarek, you came in yesterday. So what did you do the first thing?

Tarek: I just took a car to walk in the street. I like whenever I reach a country, just to walk in downtown. I asked, where's downtown? They said, Boston. It's a small city. You just go and walk. And I felt very well. I didn't really... The time was flying. I was just walking for four hours, left and right, going around. I looked at the churches, how they look, urban designs, how the city is clean, how the people are happy. I was really enjoying. By even having one ice cream, I was just like having fun by walking, looking to the people and looking to such nice buildings. Still, I have four or five days to continue to understand more, especially that I'm coming from New York. So it's totally different.

Arun: Yeah, much better. Walking is always good and if you can pair up walking with ice cream, there's nothing to beat that. Okay, what's your favorite sport, Mario?

Mario: I would say kiteboarding. Although I love all types of sports. But kiteboarding right now is my favorite.

Arun: Kiteboarding. Explain that a little bit.

Mario: It's like, you know, like surfing.

Arun: Surfing, okay.

Mario: But not windsurfing, actually. But it's a new type of windsurfing. I started that when I was working in Turks and Caicos 20 years ago. And basically what you have is you have a kite, and then you have a surfboard on your feet, and you steer the kite in the wind, and then it, you know, it drags you around.

Arun: Okay, I'll be happy watching it. I'm going to let you do it. Tarek, how about you?

Tarek: I'm assuming. Is it kite surfing by any chance? No, swimming. Swimming. Swimming and football. Football, I love, I love football and watching football, so.

Yeah, by football, you mean soccer, as we say in the US, right?

We have our famous Mohammed Salah, so he makes us so excited to watch more.

Arun: Fantastic. So Tarek, what are the top three places a first time visitor to Egypt should do? Probably we should skip the pyramids because we all know the pyramids. Other than pyramids, what are the other things to do in Egypt?

Tarek: In Egypt or in Cairo? Because in Egypt...

Arun: Either way.

Tarek: Either way, for me, anyone who needs to come and stay, he needs to see Luxor, Aswan. Cairo, he needs to see the museums. I'm talking about Luxor and Aswan because really, it's quite a lot of temples, a lot of culture, which if somebody liked it.

And Cairo, Pyramids, Great Museum, Hanl Khalili, it's an enjoyable place. While you are really seeing the old town, while you are passing by, you really enjoy it. This is one of the iconic for me. If somebody is in Horghada as a client, I'm trying to bring the repeaters now to Cairo, I'm trying to make for them an offer that they just need to come and see such nice places.

Arun: Mario, do you want to change any of these?

Mario: No, I agree 100% with Tarek. I can add a lot, being not Egyptian to be honest. I'm still amazed by the sites that this country has to offer, and they are finding more and more every day. So when you go to the pyramids, you need, everybody thinks there's only three. There's almost a hundred there, so there's also the Red Pyramid, there's the Black Pyramid, there's the Saqqara. Next to the Saqqara Pyramid is the Serrapeum, which is really unknown, but it's absolutely stunning. It's a cave with huge sarcophagus in there, and they thought that they put bulls in their back then and buried them, but they are as big as this podcast. And the detail, how they were made, that they are actually airtight, is absolutely stunning. There is the Faiyum Desert, the lakes, which are stunning, like blue water in the middle of the desert, with fish and palm trees around it. There is next to that, there is a museum, an open-air museum, where you can see fossilized prehistoric dinosaurs, sea creatures. They are just there in the desert, they lie there. You've never seen anything like this. It's huge, fossilized whales, but they were like more dinosaur whales. They are just there in the middle of the desert. Oh, and so much more. I mean, you would never stop. Okay. It's amazing.

Tarek: I'll go shortly. What Mario said, and it's a good thing that Mario is an expert, we only have 15 million tourists in last year. We are aiming to double the numbers by, and this is the government view, and this is the role of the Ministry of Tourism by end of 2030, after the opening of the new museum, to double the numbers because we really have a lot to be seen and still we need more. We are looking now, we are building a lot of hotels. All owners nowadays are building really, you are coming now every year like 50 hotels new. So the room inventory is coming up and we are looking for doubling the numbers which will support us a lot.

Arun: Yeah, that's going to need a whole lot of infrastructure, development, airports and roads and other services and like you mentioned, hotels and restaurants.

Tarek: Yes, we are doing that nowadays. Really with the new vision of the government in terms of infrastructure and roads, and now with the new hotels coming up, with the new museum coming up, we are feeling that we can do it easily. But we will see the numbers getting, by closing 2024 we see first how we closed the year and then we aim for next years.

Mario: But also the Ministry of Antiquities is working with UNESCO to redo what I mentioned already, the Hanei Halili, which is like this should be something like Venice, for example. It's a benchmark for Hanei Halili, for the old town of historic Cairo. It's absolutely amazing when you walk through that, and the history that is there, the old buildings. I mean, once they rejuvenate this area and make it accessible for tourists to actually be walkable like Venice, it will hugely lift up Cairo again. As a tourist destination.

Arun: Great. So it's been fantastic having both of you, and I've learned so much about Aldau's commitment to both Egypt's future and the hospitality industry. Thank you again for joining us on the Distinguished podcast. We look forward to seeing Aldau's continued success, both in Egypt and internationally.

Tarek: Thank you very much for the time. We really have the pleasure to have you to be here today.

Mario: Thank you very much. It was a pleasure being here.

Arun: If you want to join the conversation and share your thoughts and suggestions, email me at shardeen.bu.edu. Special thanks to the team who produces this podcast, producer Mara Littman, editor and sound engineer Andy Halleck, director of the BU School of Hospitality Real Estate Program, Kaushik Vardarajan and the entire team at Boston University School of Hospitality Administration. To keep up with Distinguished podcast, be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcast.

You can also learn more about experience innovation in our undergraduate and graduate programs by visiting bu.edu/hospitality. Have a great day.