Salary Survey: Egypt v Saudi Arabia

EGYPT:
Our eight respondents from Egypt paint an interesting picture of life as a hotelier in the country at the moment. They represented the complete spectrum of salaries. Unsurprisingly, most of them had been affected by the unrest: 28.6% had to move; 14.3% said they still may be moved; and 28.6% said they had to make some adjustments.

A further 57.1% believed it will be more than another year before the country fully recovers from the regional unrest although none of them opted for more than two years. 2014 is clearly seen as the year for complete recovery.

Unlike the region as a whole, 50% of our Egyptian hoteliers believe value adds are the way to attract tourists back to the region and not one felt the formation of a Middle East tourism board was necessary. 42.9% said they would leave their current job to move to a new location and only 14.3% said they were completely happy in their current job, way down on the regional sentiment.

Having said that, 71.4% said they look forward to the future with complete confidence and only one respondent said they felt less secure than they did 12 months ago.

Worryingly, not one of those surveyed from Egypt thought they were currently working for the best employer, although 28.6% said they had previously done.

Only Yemen and Syria were mentioned as countries where the respondents felt pay was lowest in the region while more than half felt it was in Egypt.

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SAUDI:
Our Saudi Arabian respondents are a loyal bunch with 57.2% having worked for their current employer for more than 10 years. However, 54.5% believe their wage is lower than global average.

When it came to who pays the lowest in the region, 36.4% said Egypt, but the same amount said Saudi Arabia. Yemen, Libya and Oman all received 9.1%.

Unlike their Egyptian counterparts, just over a third (36.4%) said they thought they were working for the best employer and a further 18.2% said they had done so previously. They are, however, slightly more pessimistic than hoteliers working in Egypt. Only 63.6% said they looked forward to the future with complete confidence, compared to 71.4% in Egypt.

Furthermore, 18.2% feel less secure about the future than they did 12 months ago. Only 27.3% said they would leave their current job to move to a different location and 18.2% said they were completely happy in their current position, a drop from the 28.6% who were completely happy in their current positions last year.

Only one hotelier operating in Saudi had to move due to regional unrest and 25% had made adjustments, but clearly not on the scale as in Egypt. This reflects in the fact that respondents working in Saudi expect recovery to be quicker than their colleagues in Egypt.

Half believe confidence has already been restored and a further 12.5% believe it will be restored within a year.

37.5% of respondents said promoting countries that hadn’t been affected by the Arab Spring would attract those put off by images of unrest.