‘The Saint Catherine we knew is gone,’ Egyptian locals say of Sinai mountain megaproject

A US$300 million project is under way to draw tourists to the biblical mountain town, but experts fear more harm is being done than good

Reading Time:3 minutes

Saint Catherine’s Monastery, in South Sinai, Egypt, pictured in September 2016. Hotels and other large building projects under construction in the Saint Catherine valley as part of Egypt’s “Great Transfiguration” tourism megaproject are sparking outrage among locals and heritage experts alike. Photo: AFP

Published: 12:15pm, 6 Dec 2025

Atop one of Egypt’s Sinai mountains, near where the three Abrahamic faiths say God spoke with Moses, another unmistakable sound rings out: the incessant drilling of construction work.

In the remote, rugged terrain of southern Sinai, Egypt has undertaken a vast megaproject aimed at drawing mass tourism to the once serene mountain town of Saint Catherine.

Heritage experts and locals say the state’s bulldozers have already damaged the nature reserve and Unesco World Heritage site, home to the world’s oldest functioning Christian monastery and the Bedouin tribe, who fear for their ancestral land.

“The Saint Catherine we knew is gone. The next generation will only know these buildings,” says a veteran hiking guide from the Jabaliya tribe, as a five-star hotel looms overhead and the beeps of a reversing bulldozer drown out the songbirds.

Like others interviewed about the nearly US$300 million “Great Transfiguration”, or “Revelation of Saint Catherine” project, he requested anonymity for fear of retaliation.

“We should call this what it is, which is the disfigurement and destruction [of the site],” says John Grainger, the former manager of the European Union’s Saint Catherine protectorate project.

Select Voice

Choose your listening speed

Get through articles 2x faster

1.25x

250 WPM

Slow

Average

Fast

00:0000:00

1.25x