Welcome to El Gouna Times
Welcome to our pre-release version of El Gouna Times!
Use the Calendar here to the right to show previous articles of last month!
Willkommen - Welkom - Bienvenu - Bienvenida - Benvenuto - Marhaban!
ATTENTION: we are not yet officially online… so this site is still in its SNEAK PREVIEW version! However, your reactions are welcomed!
El Gouna Times is a free, independent and interactive online news service from and for tourists and residents in El Gouna at the Red Sea, Egypt.
El Gouna is one of many realisations of the Orascom Group and has become the number one holiday destination in Egypt, and is further expanding into a thriving community where you can spend excellent holidays, or live and work, or retire yourself, in a healthy, safe and sunny climate.
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Starting mid June 2005, El Gouna Times will bring editorials that keep you up to date with the local events and happenings, interviews with residents and tourists, and hot news about the people you know already in El Gouna. It will help you in finding your way at one of the most attractive holiday resorts in Africa.
Editorials in El Gouna Times will be in English, but we are able to cope with German, Dutch, French, Italian and Spanish languages too. For those languages we have incorporated a special section in the menu at the right under About El Gouna Times, where you can post reactions in your own language.
Besides our regular Editorial, El Gouna Times offers also in the menu at the right:
- A Postings Calendar where our readers have the possibility to read previous issues of our magazine and articles that were published as posting. Search in postings via the Search box.
- A Content Index, with lot of bundled theme pages around El Gouna and hints how to cope with the Egyptian mentality. Everybody (so, registered or unregistered visitors) can add here interactive input, which will be handled by our staff before publishing.
Here you will find also a link to “New on Our Website” where we post chronologically a short description of all new features or modifications concerning navigating our website. - Our Columns/Postings section will give an overview of published postings, and will lead you via the Classified ads to interesting new contacts, either private or for business, as well as job opportunities in El Gouna, and offers a platform for renting an appartment or villa, and even for acquisition or selling your property in El Gouna. Classified Ads can be send in any language and will be listed per language seprated as well combined in the ALL section of Classified Ads.
- By using the Archive in the menu at the right you can easily stroll through series of postings published in earlier months of the El Gouna Times.
- A Forum where registered forum members (tourists and residents) have the possibility to exchange live ideas and experiences about life in El Gouna. In the Forum we have special languages sections for English, German, Dutch and French, and if wanted, also for Italian and Spanish speaking visitors. The interface for the Forum can be set to English, German, Dutch, French; Spanish, Italian or Arabic!
- In our section Photo Series you’ll find a vaste choice of albums with thousands of pictures: sightseeing impressions as well as our VIP’s of the day.
- And you can even upload your own El Gouna pictures, all which can be used by anyone for sending free E-cards to family and friends all over the world. But: you’ll find here also hundreds of pictures of real estate objects, and even detailed pictures made during construction or renovation progress of certain El Gouna projects.
- Last but not least, you’ll find an exclusive choice of external links to free historical and entertainment sites for your moments of leisure.
- And of course, you too can buy advertising space in our El Gouna Times.
Because El Gouna Times is an interactive medium, readers are able to react immediately at most items, by clicking on the Write a Comment link under each article.
Enjoy!
Hubert Savelberg
Responsible Editor
Don’t forget to read also the comments added to this page:
May 26th, 2005 at 08:39
Dear Hubert,
I just had a quick look on the site. It is great, this was something missing and a big progress compared to http://www.elgouna.com
A couple of comments :
- Weather : you should add wind speed and direction, this is key in El Gouna.
- a daily tide chart would also be usefull for boaters.
Bravo
Hervé Siegrist in Geneva, villa owner
Hello Herve… if you click on the external link on our El Gouna Weather page, you’ll get the Wind speed forecasts for the upcoming week… we are still negotating with the developer of that service to have it incorporated in our page immediately… For the tides, i’ll will check the possibilities also. Tx for your feedback, Hubert
May 26th, 2005 at 16:50
Hubert,
Congratulations for such a nice site, after a quick view I think it would be a very nice site to visit, as we all know , any thing concerning Gouna is now an atractive pull to all of us gounies.
Well done and keep it up.
Doaa
Tx for your Feedback, Doaa. Greetings, Hubert
May 27th, 2005 at 16:58
Hi Hubert, the El Gouna Times is fantastic, giving a more tangible feel to the place, escpecially for those of us waiting for our properties to be completed. It was great to see pictures of construction around Golf West, and images from most of the other areas. It could also be a great resource to all residents new and those well established. How often will it be updated? How about a couple of Gounacams for a real live feel to the place. Just one plea - please don’t let it become a popup/advertising hell site, I’m sure that would put a lot of people off. Looking forward to the “Live site” David - London
Hi David, thank you for your comments and the support.
No, the banners you see right now, one on top and one at the bottom of the page, plus the cubic one in the Menu is all there will be for banners on the site. And yes, we detest also popup banners, so don’t worry…
El Gouna Cams: the first will be installed as a test mid June, but we are thinking about to have a wandering webcam from spot to spot each month in El Gouna also, depends on the internet lines and negociations…
And our experience is: if you put one webcam, soon others will follow.
About the update rhytme: it is an interactive site, so people can write comme to each one of the articles, and between now and two more months, we will have hundreds of articles more.
Besides that, there is a forum where you yourself can participate in more specific discussions… have a look and enjoy… . Hubert
May 28th, 2005 at 18:51
Hubert , this is a fantastic site, and I really hope it gets “off the ground” with plenty of contributors.
The photo section is great - especially for those of us with apartments under construction and not able currently to get to El Gouna often enough to see all the changes. We are now unlikely to be in Gouna until the end of the year for key handover (the external painting will be a real landmark when it happens and we’d love to see it in something other than grey!!)
Have you thought about a section for the children.? My two (11 & 12) would love to be able to communicate with children who live or have holiday homes in El Gouna - with a view to making friends
Best wishes
Thanks for the compliments, and yes, i hope too that this will develop into a nice community. And sorry, no, i have not yet thought about a section for the children, because my sons are already 29 and 30 and are not yet married, so even no grandchildren around. But of course, you are right… I should have thought about that. What do you want: a chat room, or a section in the forum, or a section in the photo album (allthough that will be probably too difficult for children and I don’t like putting pictures of children in the internet.) You name it, and i put our technicians on the job!
Pictures of projects under construction:
I will be in El Gouna for 4 weeks starting mid june, and i will take more pictures (also of properties un der construction). Tell me which property is yours, and i’ll try to shoot some extra pictures of it. (he, a new service idea is born…)
Greetings Hubert
May 30th, 2005 at 17:40
Hallo Hubert, Wir sind nicht nur Nachbarn sondern auch Kollegen. Ich bin Unix und Backup networker Spezialist und auch Microsoft System Administrator. Ich bin Gestern Zurück aus El Gouna nach meinen 10 Tagen Urlaub im Golf Appartement verbracht hatte. Wunder schone Webseite hast du gemacht. Ich hoffe das wir uns in elgouna treffen konnten.
Viele Grüße, Benyamin Louk
Wenn ich in El Gouna bin, lässt sich das bestimmt mal einrichten. Gruss, Hubert