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These Women-run Tours of Cairo Prove 'It's Not Just About Checking Off Stops'

As Egypt makes an effort to diversify its workforce, new faces in the travel industry are introducing visitors to the city they love.

Stephanie Vermillion is a travel journalist and photographer covering culture and adventure for Travel + Leisure Outside, and more.

In Historic Cairo , you don't just see the sights — you feel them. Between the whoosh of cyclists and the wafting scent of piping-hot flatbread, my senses couldn't keep up.

"Ready for a snack?" asked my guide, Asmaa Khattab. I obviously wasn't the first of her clients to be both dazzled and disoriented by this corner of the city. The cobblestoned maze of mosques and monuments dates back to the 10th century — one of the largest collections of medieval architecture in the Islamic world. But such relics were only half of the story.

Our walking tour was also an introduction to a cultural shift that's reshaping the visitor experience in Egypt . Expanding beyond the classic Pyramids-and-Sphinx tourism model, young guides are bringing travelers to lesser-visited locales like this UNESCO -protected neighborhood, pairing the country's millennia of history with a crash course in contemporary culture. And Egyptian women are helping lead this movement toward experiential tourism — paving a long-overdue path for future female entrepreneurs.

In Egypt, women have historically lacked a seat at the business table. The country ranked near the bottom in the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Global Gender Gap report from 2021 , and figures indicate that women make up less than a quarter of the labor force. Slowly, though, the landscape is changing — and tourism, which makes up a significant portion of Egypt's economy, is among the most promising industries.

In 2019, the government announced the Closing the Gender Gap Accelerator , a WEF collaboration aimed at increasing women's participation in the workforce and helping more of them reach leadership positions. Egypt also became the first country to launch the United Nations Development Program's Gender Equality Seal for tourism: a pledge to bring more women into the sector.

Khattab (pictured above) dreamed up her company, Walk Like an Egyptian , to showcase a side of her country not found on a tour bus. "It's not just about checking off stops one, two, and three," she told me, recalling her early days at a travel agency where cookie-cutter trips were the standard. She quit in 2010, tired of hollow, highlights-only travel, then launched her Historic Cairo walking tours in 2015.

Related : 8 Female Entrepreneurs Who Are Changing the Travel Space

"What makes Egypt special is not only the history and the sights but also the warmth and hospitality," Khattab explained. We shared a bowl of foul, a dish of fava beans, tomatoes, and garlic, just outside the tentmakers' market, where artisans sell khayamiya, the colorful Fatimid-era appliquéd textiles. As Khattab put it, "I'm trying to have tours with soul."

She's far from the only one. In 2016, Laila Hassaballa and Mariam Nezar introduced Bellies En-Route , the city's first business specializing in food tours . The duo hosts multi-meal jaunts between hip and hidden spots in Downtown Cairo. These include Hassaballa's favorite woman-owned restaurant, Fasahet Somaya , whose founder, Somaya Elaasuoty, rose to culinary fame after helping feed protesters during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution.

"I was shocked no one was doing food tours in Cairo," Hassaballa told me as we ambled between kahwa (coffee shops) and hole-in-the-wall diners. The idea struck her during a pizza-and-gelato cooking class with Italian chefs in Florence in 2014. For her, "it felt like we were peeling back another layer of the culture." Business quickly took off, and in 2021, she and Nezar released a cookbook, Table to Table .

Female entrepreneurship is shaping Egypt's culture well beyond travel. Entreprenelle , a grassroots business incubator and education initiative, has helped thousands of Egyptian women bring their ideas to life. Program graduate Shorouk Abdelaal showcases the work of emerging Egyptian fashion designers at Châteaux Chic , in New Cairo. Another alumna, designer Omnia Raouf Noly, sells her handmade purses through Noly Bags . And artisan Shorouk Mohammed founded Al-Ghoria , an online store for her colorful handcrafted home goods.

These female founders aren't waiting for an even playing field. Khattab, for one, is already thinking about her next big plan: making her Historic Cairo tours wheelchair-accessible. With tight cobblestoned alleyways and heavy foot traffic, this will be no small feat. But it's part of her goal to treat every guest with the Egyptian hospitality she loves. "We should welcome people in our country as we welcome them in our home."

A version of this story first appeared in the November 2021 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline Women About Town.

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Half Day Tour - USD   200

Full Day Tour - USD   300

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4-Hour Night Tour To Cairo

Walk down the narrow alleys of Cairo, eat local food, drink local drinks and maybe smoke huka. Live for a few hours like the local Egyptians. Come and do it ...

TourHQ ID: EG84871

experience: Since 2001

gender: Female

• Private Tour Guide in : Cairo
• Other Guiding Areas: Giza, Aswan, Luxor
• Languages: Arabic , English

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Moscow Metro

The Moscow Metro Tour is included in most guided tours’ itineraries. Opened in 1935, under Stalin’s regime, the metro was not only meant to solve transport problems, but also was hailed as “a people’s palace”. Every station you will see during your Moscow metro tour looks like a palace room. There are bright paintings, mosaics, stained glass, bronze statues… Our Moscow metro tour includes the most impressive stations best architects and designers worked at - Ploshchad Revolutsii, Mayakovskaya, Komsomolskaya, Kievskaya, Novoslobodskaya and some others.

What is the kremlin in russia?

The guide will not only help you navigate the metro, but will also provide you with fascinating background tales for the images you see and a history of each station.

And there some stories to be told during the Moscow metro tour! The deepest station - Park Pobedy - is 84 metres under the ground with the world longest escalator of 140 meters. Parts of the so-called Metro-2, a secret strategic system of underground tunnels, was used for its construction.

During the Second World War the metro itself became a strategic asset: it was turned into the city's biggest bomb-shelter and one of the stations even became a library. 217 children were born here in 1941-1942! The metro is the most effective means of transport in the capital.

There are almost 200 stations 196 at the moment and trains run every 90 seconds! The guide of your Moscow metro tour can explain to you how to buy tickets and find your way if you plan to get around by yourself.

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Catalysis Science & Technology

Co nanoparticles decorated radix cynanchi daniculati-derived carbon for efficient electrocatalytic nitrite reduction to ammonia.

Electrocatalytic nitrite (NO2−) reduction reaction (NO2−RR) is an eco-friendly and sustainable method to remove NO2− pollution under ambient conditions while producing high value-added ammonia (NH3). However, the conversion of NO2− to NH3 is governed by a complex six-electron transfer mechanism, necessitating the development of catalysts that exhibit high efficiency and selectivity. Herein, we report Co nanoparticles decorated radix cynanchi paniculati-derived carbon (Co@RCPC) as a highly active electrocatalyst for NO2− to NH3 conversion. Such Co@RCPC attains an excellent Faradaic efficiency of 92.77% and NH3 yield of 1235.62 µmol h−1 cm−2 in alkaline solution. In addition, it also demonstrates superior stability in recycling stability test and consecutive long-term electrolysis test.

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C. Ma, L. Bao, X. Fan, X. He, X. Liu, W. Chu, A. Farouk, M. S. Hamdy, S. Sun, Q. Li, M. Wu and X. Sun, Catal. Sci. Technol. , 2024, Accepted Manuscript , DOI: 10.1039/D4CY00392F

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