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Political studies and 
theories of globalisation have often equated globalisation with a process where space and locality are eroded by economic transnational networks and are, to some extent, considered as no longer relevant as an analytical framework – this is the case in particular for the territories defined by national boundaries1. On the other hand, many social scientists have emphasized the importance of place, scale, and nation in the process of globalisation, in particular through the analysis of cities in the global economy (SASSEN, 1991, 2006; VELTZ, 1996). Globalisation is here understood as a process which not only engages international scales of action and specific domains of activity (the economy for instance), but also engages the whole range of social interactions on all the different geographic scales (LEVY, 1999).
theories of globalisation have often equated globalisation with a process where space and locality are eroded by economic transnational networks and are, to some extent, considered as no longer relevant as an analytical framework – this is the case in particular for the territories defined by national boundaries1. On the other hand, many social scientists have emphasized the importance of place, scale, and nation in the process of globalisation, in particular through the analysis of cities in the global economy (SASSEN, 1991, 2006; VELTZ, 1996). Globalisation is here understood as a process which not only engages international scales of action and specific domains of activity (the economy for instance), but also engages the whole range of social interactions on all the different geographic scales (LEVY, 1999). - 1 On these aspects, see Hazbun (2004).
2Furthermore, scholars have insisted on the importance of place and territories in the process of globalisation, as well as on their increasing relevance and role in globalisation (SHORT, 2001; SCOTT, 2008). Place and territories offer unique and specific combinations of strategic resources. They are also social and spatial configurations, whose relative position is redefined by globalisation. Space is far from being globalisation’s biggest loser: it is at the same time its product and its engine (LEVY, 1999, p. 338).
3This essay, which makes use of the theoretical paradigm of global studies, takes the example of tourism in Egypt to argue that globalisation is also a process of territorial creation. Indeed, the Upper Valley of the Nile, the shrine of the archaeological sites, is not Egypt’s first destination any longer: for an overwhelming majority of tourists, the transparent waters of the Red Sea – and, to a lesser extent, of the Mediterranean Sea – offer new temptations, which are advertised and packaged by companies working for the global market. This territorial shift has taken place over less than twenty years, since Egypt’s first tourism destinations were mere deserted beaches at the end of the 1980s. But this territorial creation does not only take place on the local or national scale: it puts Egypt firmly on the global maps of tourism, as part of an emerging global frontier.
4In the context of the massive growth in the number of tourists and of the activity of tourism from the 1990s onwards, in tune with a process of economic liberalization and opening, this article first demonstrates how the emergence of Egypt on the maps of global tourism has translated into the creation and development of new territories of tourism. It argues that this process leads to a complete inversion of the former maps of tourism in Egypt. Secondly, it analyses the system of actors that supports this territorial inversion, as it exemplifies the local-global nexus at the heart of global processes. This system articulates the tourist, the State, the national tourism industry, and the actors of global tourism – focusing on the hotel sector.