We are about twelve hundred. Twelve hundred Italians stably residing in Sharm El Sheikh in 2026, according to cross-references from the Consulate and associative groups. A small number in absolute terms, large compared to the city’s population (about 80,000 total inhabitants). Who we are, how we got here, why we stay: it’s a story worth telling.
The first generation — the ’80s and ’90s
The first Italians to settle stably in Sharm were diving instructors and tourist village managers. The Red Sea exploded as a diving destination in the 1980s, and Italy has always had one of the largest underwater communities in Europe. The first Sharm diving centers are often opened or managed by Italians. Many of them stayed. Some opened restaurants, others tourism service businesses, others still married Egyptian women and integrated into the local fabric.
The 1990s brought the great wave of Italian tour operators: Alpitour, Eden, Veratour, Teorema, Francorosso. Charter flights arrive in Sharm four days a week. Italian villages multiply. Each village has an Italian village manager, an Italian entertainer, an Italian cook. Many of these professionals, after a few years of contract, decide not to return.
The second generation — the children
Today in Sharm there are children and teenagers born of mixed Italian-Egyptian couples who speak Italian at home with one parent, Arabic with the other, English at school. The third language. Their identity is a mix of three cultures that exists nowhere else — Italo-Egyptians of the Red Sea. Some of them attend the Italian school in Cairo, others international schools in Sharm. Many will go to Italy for university and return. Others will remain in Egypt.
The more recent waves
After the 2008 crisis and especially after 2011, a new wave of Italians arrived in Sharm — this time more for lifestyle choice than for work. Retirees who discover that with Italian pensions they can live better here. Remote professionals taking advantage of contained costs. Small entrepreneurs opening businesses in tourism, restaurants, services. Community composition expands.
The great shocks
Italians in Sharm have weathered historic shocks of the city. The Sharm attacks of 2005 (83 victims, one of the most serious tragedies in Egyptian tourism history) emptied the city for months. Those who remained kept operating. The attack on the Russian plane in 2015, which paralyzed tourism for three years, decimated the community: about 30% of resident Italians returned to Italy during that period. The 2020-2021 pandemic saw some leave, others stay, still others arrive as Sharm remained open while Italy closed.
The associations
The Italian Association in Sharm (AISharm) is the main community reference point. Born in the mid-2000s, it has about 400-500 active members and a broader Facebook presence (the group has more than 2,500 members). It organizes community initiatives, meetings, informal bureaucratic assistance. It’s not the only one — there are sub-communities (diving, retirees, mixed families) with their own micro-aggregations.
What keeps us here
If you ask ten Italians who have lived here for over ten years why they don’t return, you get ten different answers. But three recur.
The climate — three hundred days of sun a year. After years, the Italian grey winter is scary.
The rhythm — Sharm is a city where you work hard but have time. The sea is five minutes from everywhere. Relationships are slower.
The community — we know each other. A certain form of expat solidarity that in Italy, in big cities, is hard to find.
What divides us
It’s not all idyllic. Like every expat community, the Italian community in Sharm has its tensions: generational conflicts (’90s veterans don’t always recognize 2020 newcomers), imported political differences (Italian politics is a hot topic here too), professional rivalries in the tourism sector. But in difficult moments — a loss, illness, a bureaucratic problem — the community comes back together.
The future
The numbers of the Italian community in Sharm will probably be stable in the coming years. Not exploding, not declining. One role could grow: that of “cultural bridge” between Italy and Egypt at a time when diplomatic and economic relations between the two countries are moving closer again after a complicated decade. Sharm, with its Italians who speak Arabic and its Egyptians who speak Italian, is a unique coexistence laboratory. The magazine you are reading was born also from this: telling the story of a community that often doesn’t know how interesting it is.
