Legal standing ·
Licensed in Cairo since 1988.Please don’t take our word for it.
Any company can print a licence number on a website. What matters is whether you can check it against something we don’t control. So every credential below is paired with the public registry that issued it, and the first link goes straight to our entry in the Egyptian Travel Agents Association database — licence 718, Category A, filed the year we opened.
- ETAA licence
- 718
- Category
- A أ
- IATA
- 90255546
- Licensed since
- Feb 1988
- Registered office
- Cairo, Egypt
One by one
What we hold, what it permits, and where to check it.
The licence that lets us trade
ETAA Licence No. 718
Category A
This is the licence that makes us a legal tour operator in Egypt, and it is the one credential that matters most. Category A — written أ in the Arabic register — is the top classification, and it is what permits a company to build and run full inbound programs rather than act as a booking agent for someone else's.
What it permits
- Organizing and operating inbound tours end to end
- Contracting hotels, Nile cruise vessels, and transport in our own name
- Employing licensed Egyptologist guides directly
- Holding client funds against a booked program
Goes straight to licence 718 in the Association's public database — our company name, category, founding date, Cairo address, and the chairman's name, published by the regulator rather than by us.
This is the Ministry of Tourism permit for our Luxor office, issued under Law 38 of 1977. We publish it because it states the things you would want to check — company licence 718, issued 7 February 1988, and the head-office address — on ministry letterhead. Two names are blacked out: the private owner of the Luxor building and the branch manager, neither of whom is a public officer of the company.
The international one
IATA Accreditation No. 90255546
Accredited agent
IATA accreditation is voluntary. It exists so airlines and international partners can deal with us directly, and it is granted only after financial guarantees, an office inspection, and staff ticketing certification — then re-examined every year.
What it permits
- Issuing airline tickets directly
- Settlement through the IATA BSP system
- Recognition by airline and trade partners worldwide
IATA's free Check-a-Code lookup. Enter 90255546 and it returns the accredited agent that code belongs to. IATA runs the database; we have no ability to edit what it says — which is why we point you there rather than sending you a certificate. The live database is better evidence than any paper we could email you.
The company behind the licence
Egyptian company registration, tax and insurance
On request
Behind the tourism licence sits an ordinary Egyptian company with the ordinary obligations: commercial registration, tax registration, social insurance for every employee on the payroll, and insurance cover for our vehicles and our ground operations. None of this is glamorous and none of it is published in a public registry — but a corporate client, a tour operator partner, or an insurer is entitled to see it, and we send it on request the same working day.
What we can send you
- Commercial registration certificate
- Tax registration card
- Third-party liability certificate (Al Watanyia Insurance)
- Vehicle and passenger transport insurance certificates
- Guide licences for named Egyptologists on a specific program
Marked against the register
Eight things we claim. Eight things the regulator confirms.
These are our own published facts set against the Egyptian Travel Agents Association’s public database entry for licence 718 — a record we can neither write nor edit. Where the wording differs, it is transliteration, not discrepancy: أ is how Category A is written in Arabic, the chairman’s name appears in the register’s own romanisation, and Misr El Gedida is the Arabic name for Heliopolis.
| What we publish | On this site | In the ETAA register |
|---|---|---|
| Legal company name | Discovery Tours | Discovery Tours |
| Licence number | 718 | 718 |
| Licence category | Category A | أ (A) |
| Trading since | February 7, 1988 | 2/7/1988 |
| Chairman | Abdelmoneam Hassany | Abd el naeem hassany abd allah macky |
| Registered office | 12 El Obour Buildings, Salah Salem, Heliopolis, Cairo | Flat 6, Floor 3, Block 12 Elobour building, Misr Elgadida, Cairo |
| Telephone | +20 10 9021 5031 | 01090215031 |
| Contact email | info@discoverytoursegypt.com | info@discoverytoursegypt.com |
Check the entry yourself— it opens directly on licence 718. If you would rather not follow a link from our own website, searching“ETAA member 718”turns up the same record through independent listings.
The part most companies leave out
What these credentials do not do.
- 01
Our licence is Egyptian, and only Egyptian
Licence 718 governs what we do inside Egypt. It is not a US seller-of-travel registration and it is not a UK ATOL. If you are buying a flight-inclusive package, the flight protection has to come from the agency that issues the ticket, not from us.
- 02
IATA covers air ticketing, not your ground program
Accreditation 90255546 is about airline settlement. It is a real financial vetting and worth something, but it does not insure your Nile cruise. What governs the ground arrangements is the contract you sign with us, which is why we would rather you read it than take a badge on trust. Our ground operations run under an Egyptian third-party liability policy placed with Al Watanyia Insurance and renewed annually, and we send the current certificate on request. Be aware that Egyptian liability limits are modest by US and European standards — so treat your own travel insurance as the real protection, not ours. We would rather tell you that than let you assume a policy written in Cairo behaves like one written in Chicago.
- 03
A licence is a floor, not a promise
Every legitimate operator in Egypt holds one of these. It tells you we are real, regulated, and reachable at a registered address. It does not tell you whether the guide will be any good. For that, read the reviews — including the ones that aren't five stars.
The fair questions
What people ask before they trust us with a deposit.
01How do I check that Discovery Tours Egypt is a real licensed operator?
Open the ETAA registry entry linked at the top of this page. It shows licence number 718, category A, our Cairo address, and the chairman's name — published by the Egyptian Travel Agents Association, not by us. Cross-check the email and phone number it lists against the ones on our contact page. If they match, you are dealing with the company named in the register.
02Is 718 a licence number or a membership number?
It is the ETAA licence number, and the category attached to it is A. You will occasionally see it written as two separate credentials — a Ministry of Tourism licence and an ETAA membership — but it is one licence with one number. We have corrected our own copy where it drifted into implying otherwise.
03Can I see copies of the actual certificates?
Yes. Where a scan is published, the button sits on the credential above. Anything not yet published — commercial registration, tax card, insurance certificates, guide licences for a named program — we send by email on request, usually the same working day. Corporate clients and trade partners ask for these regularly and it is a routine request, not an awkward one.
04What does Category A actually allow that other categories don't?
Category A is the top of the three Egyptian tourism classifications. It permits a company to organize and operate full inbound programs in its own name — contracting hotels, cruise vessels and transport directly, and employing guides. Lower categories are restricted to narrower agency work, which in practice means subcontracting the actual operation to a company like ours.
05Does your Egyptian licence protect my money if something goes wrong?
Not in the way an ATOL or a US seller-of-travel bond does — we would rather say that plainly than let you assume otherwise. What you have is a contract with a licensed, registered Egyptian company with a 38-year trading history at a verifiable address, plus our liability cover. Two practical things worth knowing. First, paying by credit card often carries its own protection: many card issuers offer chargeback rights, and some UK cards carry statutory cover under Section 75 — check with your issuer rather than assuming either way. Second, for flight-inclusive travel, ask whoever issues your ticket what financial protection applies to the flight, because it will not be us.
06Are your guides individually licensed?
Yes. Egyptian law requires every guide to hold a Ministry-issued licence tied to their qualification, and we can send you the licence details for the guides assigned to your trip once the program is confirmed. On how they work with us: we are not their employer. Experienced Egyptologists in Egypt generally prefer to keep their own diary, and the good ones are in demand. What matters for you is that we are not calling whoever happens to be free — we work with the same small circle of guides year after year, so the person who meets you at the airport is someone we know, have briefed many times, and will be working with again next month.
If you need paperwork for a corporate travel policy, an insurer, or your own due diligence, write to us and say which documents you need. It is a routine request and we answer it the same working day.
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– The Cairo desk · Discovery Tours Egypt