Highlights

•Offers a gender-aware focus on the experiences of female tourists in Egypt.

•Considers challenges women face holidaying in male-dominated cultures.

•Reports on strategies used by women to avoid male harassment in the destination.

Abstract

In Islamic destinations female tourists face the added challenge of negotiating their way through male constructed local norms. This paper fills the gap in gender and tourism research with a focus on female tourists’ experiences in Egypt as an Islamic destination, outlining the diverse ways in which gender shapes and influences their experiences. A qualitative approach was taken to explore women’s coping strategies with the male sexualised gaze that they encountered during their holiday in Egypt, and sheds light on measures taken towards safeguarding themselves. Their experiences were highly influenced and often involuntarily altered by unwanted male attention and sexual harassment, as the women felt the need to fit into local female norms of behaviour in order to safeguard themselves.

Keywords

Female tourists; Gender; Egypt; Islam; Sexual harassment; Coping