I first visited the Red Sea by taxi from Luxor to Hurghada 20 years ago. There was a tiny Sheraton hotel there, where I had the best Tom Collins I've ever tasted. But as myself and my girlfriend didn't dive, and there was little else to do in Hurghada, we caught the taxi back in the evening.

Hurghada went on to grow organically and become Egypt's first Red Sea resort, an alternative to the Valley of the Kings and overloads of Egyptology. It didn't take long for the Sheraton to be joined by a dozen other international hotels, German dive instructors and windsurf schools.

And it also didn't take long for the Egyptians to recognise this new tourism potential. Within five years, Hurghada had been overtaken in popularity on The Sinai by Sharm-el-Sheikh - and as both burgeoned into über-resorts in the 1990s, so other sleepy villages were zoned for development...

Another Sinai bombing: where now for Egypt?, Steve Keenan, The Times, UK, April 25, 2006.

cf. 30 arrested in terrorist attacks in Egypt, AP via Chicago Sun-Times, Illinois, USA, April 26, 2006.