16 Rixos Radamis Sharm El Sheikh has opened Aquamania Jungle Park, a full-scale aquapark that stretches across 35,000 square metres on the Red Sea coast. With 28 waterslides, dedicated children’s zones, a 350-metre Water Coaster, and the Middle East’s first Hive Technology tubing ride, the park takes direct aim at multi-generational family travellers. It signals a sharper, more deliberate push to cement Sharm El Sheikh’s position as a year-round family destination. Travel and Tour World reports that Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, which has long identified Sharm El Sheikh as a key engine of Red Sea tourism growth, sees the park as consistent with the government’s broader agenda to diversify tourism products beyond the country’s cultural and archaeological circuit. What Aquamania Jungle Park Offers The Traveller notes that the park packs 28 waterslides into its 35,000 square metres, calibrated by age group rather than aimed at a single demographic. Younger children get dedicated ride areas and the Ride House splash zone, purpose-built to let smaller guests move freely without competing for space with older thrill-seekers. Teenagers and adults, meanwhile, can head straight for the 350-metre Water Coaster, the park’s headline attraction and the longest ride on site. The Hive Technology tubing ride stands out as a regional milestone. Aquamania Jungle Park is the first venue in the Middle East to operate this system. The ride adds a technology-driven dimension to the park’s lineup and gives it a distinctive hook that straightforward waterslides cannot match. Beyond the rides, the park layers in shaded lounges, relaxation areas, and family seating, spaces that let parents step back while children stay in the action. Food, Facilities, and the All-Inclusive Logic Aquamania Jungle Park integrates a food court and multiple kiosks that operate throughout the day, allowing guests to eat, rest, and return to the rides without leaving the site. This design choice matters more than it might seem: it locks the experience inside the Rixos Radamis campus and supports the resort’s Ultra All-Inclusive model, where a single rate covers accommodation, all meals and drinks, and full access to every facility on the property. The park integrates with a broader on-site offering that already includes a kids’ club, sports cafés, and game rooms. That density of activity strengthens the resort’s core argument to family travellers: that the full range of a family holiday, thrills, rest, dining, entertainment, is available inside one resort campus, without requiring a trip into the city. How This Shapes Egypt Tourism and Sharm El Sheikh’s Growth The timing of this launch is deliberate. Egypt closed 2025 with approximately 19 million international tourists, a 21% increase on 2024’s record figure of 15.78 million and comfortably ahead of the UN World Tourism Organisation’s global growth estimate of 5% for the year. Sharm El Sheikh airport ranked among Egypt’s top four for international arrivals in 2025, alongside Cairo, Hurghada, and Marsa Alam. Red Sea governorates, including South Sinai, consistently draw the highest volumes of international charter traffic, and charter flights to Egypt surged 32% in 2025 alone. A family-oriented aquapark of this scale directly addresses one of the structural weaknesses in Sharm El Sheikh’s tourism product: seasonality. Sun-and-sea and diving tourism tend to peak in specific months. A destination with a 35,000-square-metre water park, kids’ clubs, sports facilities, and high-end dining on a single campus is far better positioned to attract families during school holiday windows across European, Gulf, and domestic Egyptian markets, spanning more of the calendar than the traditional beach season. Longer stays, more multi-night bookings, and higher spending per guest follow naturally from that shift. ALSO READ: Kenya Targets Five Million Tourists by 2027 with the ‘Experience Wonder’ Campaign Africa Cruise Tourism Gains as Vasco da Gama Reroutes, Bypasses the Middle East How Tunisia’s Hidden Gems and the Mediterranean’s Jewels are Shattering Travel Records in 2026 Aligning with Government-Led Tourism Development Egypt’s government has not left its tourism ambitions to chance. Tourism contributed 3.7% of Egypt’s GDP in fiscal year 2024/2025, up from 2.4% in 2021/2022, and the sector supported 2.7 million jobs in 2024, already exceeding pre-pandemic employment levels. The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) projects that the sector will contribute EGP 2.1 trillion to the Egyptian economy by 2035. Sharm El Sheikh already hosts over 200 hotels and resorts alongside restaurants, shopping malls, and entertainment venues – infrastructure that makes it a natural anchor for large-scale private investment. Authorities have been working in parallel to expand airport capacity, improve transport links, and upgrade on-site services across the city. Aquamania Jungle Park is a product of that environment: private-sector investment moving in sync with government-led development, rather than ahead of or behind it. Erkan Yildirim, CEO of Rixos Hotels Egypt, framed the opening in precisely those terms: “The opening of Aquamania Jungle Park represents an exciting new chapter for Rixos Radamis Sharm El Sheikh and for family entertainment in the region. Our goal is always to elevate the guest experience by combining world-class hospitality with innovative attractions.” Future Outlook for Sharm El Sheikh Tourism Fitch Solutions projects an average annual tourism growth rate of 5.7% for Egypt between 2025 and 2029, with visitor numbers expected to reach 20.65 million by 2029 and tourism revenues climbing from $17.1 billion in 2025 to $19 billion by the end of the decade. Within that trajectory, Sharm El Sheikh and the Red Sea coast carry disproportionate weight. The city’s investment in family-entertainment infrastructure, of which Aquamania Jungle Park is now the most visible example, gives it a competitive edge over Red Sea rivals that rely more heavily on beaches and diving alone. If Egypt meets its growth projections, the resorts best equipped to absorb higher guest volumes and deliver longer stays will benefit the most. Sharm El Sheikh, with a resort like Rixos Radamis now anchoring a full-campus family offering, is building precisely that capacity. Aquamania Jungle Park is not simply a new resort attraction. It reflects the maturation of Egypt’s tourism strategy: a country that once sold itself almost exclusively on ancient monuments and Red Sea diving now deliberately competes for the high-spend family leisure market that destinations in the Gulf and the Mediterranean have long dominated. The park opens Sharm El Sheikh to that market in a way it has not been before. The State of Aquapark and Family Leisure Tourism in Nigeria Nigeria’s leisure and entertainment tourism sector is at an early but accelerating stage of development. The country has a population exceeding 220 million, a growing middle class, and rising disposable incomes concentrated in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, and Kano. Yet domestic leisure infrastructure, particularly large-scale, family-oriented water parks and resort campuses comparable to what Rixos Radamis now offers in Sharm El Sheikh, remains thin. The few water parks that exist in Nigeria, including Eleganza Gardens in Lagos, operate on a fraction of the scale and investment of Aquamania Jungle Park. There is no domestic facility that integrates 35,000 square metres of water attractions with an all-inclusive resort model, high-end dining, and a technology-driven ride system. This gap has two consequences: Nigerian families with the means to seek high-quality leisure experiences travel abroad to find them, and Nigeria loses a significant share of outbound tourism spend, much of it to destinations in the UAE, Turkey, Egypt, and Ghana, that could remain within the country. The Nigerian Tourism Development Authority (NTDA) and the Federal Ministry of Tourism have identified leisure and family tourism as priority growth areas. Still, private investment at the scale required for resort campuses comparable to Rixos Radamis has not yet materialised. That investment gap means Nigeria functions primarily as a source market for family leisure tourism, contributing to visitor numbers and revenues in countries like Egypt, rather than as a destination that captures those same revenues domestically. How Aquamania Jungle Park Could Impact Nigeria and Africa’s Tourism Sector Aquamania Jungle Park’s opening carries several implications for Nigeria and the broader African tourism landscape. First, it reinforces Egypt’s competitive position as Africa’s premier Red Sea tourism destination, a position Nigeria’s travellers are already aware of. Nigerian tourists have shown a consistent appetite for Egyptian destinations, particularly Sharm El Sheikh and Hurghada, as short- to medium-haul leisure options that offer beach, resort, and cultural experiences in a single trip. An aquapark of this scale, bundled into an all-inclusive model, makes Egypt a more compelling choice for Nigerian families planning international leisure travel, thereby increasing the share of Nigeria’s outbound tourism spend flowing to Egypt. Second, and more consequentially for the African tourism sector as a whole, Aquamania Jungle Park sets a visible benchmark for what integrated family resort infrastructure looks like at scale. African tourism boards and private investors in markets such as Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Morocco, and South Africa are closely watching Egypt’s tourism sector. Egypt’s ability to attract nearly 19 million tourists in 2025, and to do so partly by building high-quality, non-cultural tourism products, validates a diversification model that other African destinations are attempting to replicate. For Nigeria specifically, the lesson is instructive. The country has natural assets, coastline, warm weather, a large domestic market, and a diaspora with significant spending power that could support a similar resort campus model in states like Lagos, Ogun, Delta, or Cross River. The Tinubu administration’s economic diversification agenda, which explicitly identifies tourism as a growth sector, creates a policy environment where investment in large-scale leisure infrastructure could be incentivised. But the ambition and the execution have not yet converged. Third, the Aquamania Jungle Park model illustrates the revenue logic of the all-inclusive campus: it reduces guest spend leakage, maximises dwell time, and increases average revenue per visit. Nigerian domestic tourism, which currently operates on fragmented, per-service spending patterns, could generate significantly higher revenues per tourist if operators adopted a comparable campus-and-package model. Resorts in Calabar’s Cross River State, for instance, have attempted elements of this approach but lack the scale of investment and the integration of high-quality attractions that make the Rixos Radamis model effective. The broader African tourism opportunity is real. Africa attracted approximately 70 million international tourist arrivals in 2023, according to UN Tourism data. Still, the continent’s share of global tourism revenue remains disproportionately low, reflecting infrastructure gaps, connectivity limitations, and an overreliance on cultural and wildlife-based tourism products that appeal to a narrower market segment than family leisure. Aquamania Jungle Park’s opening is a data point in the argument that investing in world-class leisure infrastructure drives volume, spend, and repeat visitation, an argument that African tourism planners, including Nigeria’s, need to take seriously. Africa’s tourism landscape is moving fast. Read more stories on destination openings, travel investments, and what they mean for Nigeria’s tourism sector, right here on Rex Clarke Adventures. FAQs What is Aquamania Jungle Park at Rixos Radamis Sharm El Sheikh? Aquamania Jungle Park is a 35,000-square-metre aquapark at Rixos Radamis Sharm El Sheikh on Egypt’s Red Sea coast. It features 28 waterslides, a 350-metre Water Coaster, dedicated children’s zones including the Ride House splash area, and the Middle East’s first Hive Technology tubing ride. Access is included in the resort’s Ultra All-Inclusive package. Who is Aquamania Jungle Park designed for? The park targets multi-generational family groups. Dedicated children’s ride areas and the Ride House zone cater to younger guests, while the 350-metre Water Coaster and the Hive Technology tubing ride appeal to older children, teenagers, and adults seeking high-energy experiences. How does the Hive Technology tubing ride differ from standard water park rides? Hive Technology is a proprietary ride system that powers the tubing experience differently from conventional gravity-fed waterslides, using an active propulsion mechanism to create a distinctive ride experience. Aquamania Jungle Park is the first venue in the Middle East to install and operate this system. How does Aquamania Jungle Park fit into Egypt’s broader tourism strategy? Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has been diversifying the country’s tourism product beyond its cultural and archaeological heritage toward leisure, water-based, and family-oriented experiences. The park aligns with that strategy and with Egypt’s record 2025 visitor numbers, approximately 19 million tourists, by adding premium family infrastructure to one of the country’s top Red Sea destinations. What does Aquamania Jungle Park mean for Nigerian tourists and Africa’s tourism sector? For Nigerian tourists, the park strengthens Egypt’s appeal as a family leisure destination and is likely to draw more outbound tourism spend from Nigeria toward Sharm El Sheikh. For Africa’s tourism sector more broadly, it validates the model of investing in large-scale, integrated family resort infrastructure to compete for the global leisure market, a model that Nigerian and other African tourism planners could apply to their own markets. Egypt aquaparksfamily attractions EgyptSharm El Sheikh family tourism 0 comment 0 FacebookTwitterPinterestLinkedinTelegramEmail Oluwafemi Kehinde Oluwafemi Kehinde is a business and technology correspondent and an integrated marketing communications enthusiast with close to a decade of experience in content and copywriting. He currently works as an SEO specialist and a content writer at Rex Clarke Adventures. Throughout his career, he has dabbled in various spheres, including stock market reportage and SaaS writing. He also works as a social media manager for several companies. He holds a bachelor's degree in mass communication and majored in public relations.