Seven years tracking entry passes, four editors in Beni Suef, seven pass categories on the rota.

How it started.

Reem Sabbagh joined the Egyptian Tourism Authority's records office in 2010 as a junior records officer responsible for tracking entry-fee disputes and pass-validity complaints across the Tourism Authority's network of participating sites. By 2017 she was the senior records officer and her professional brief covered the consolidated reporting on the gap between the Tourism Authority's published framework and the gate-applied rules. The recurring frustration was the same one her colleagues in the records office had expressed since the office's founding: the Tourism Authority published its framework, the gate staff applied a working interpretation of the framework, and the gap between the two was visible in every quarterly complaint report but had no external public visibility.

The registry was Reem's answer in early 2019 after she left the Tourism Authority to set up the publication. The proposal was straightforward: an independent registry that would document the published framework, document the gate-applied rules, and publish the variance openly. The first issue went out in April 2019 with four pass categories covered; today the rota stands at seven. The cooperative was incorporated as Beni Suef Cultural Records S.A.E. in late 2019.

The four editors.

Reem Sabbagh — founder and lead editor. Born Beni Suef 1984. Eight years at the Tourism Authority records office through 2019. Specialist subjects: pass framework architecture, gate-rule documentation, the dispute-resolution process. Signs the quarterly verification reports personally.

Hassan al-Maliki — Upper Egypt sites editor. Born Asyut 1988. Trained as a tourism-management graduate at Cairo University (2006–10) and then nine years at the Luxor Tourism Office covering the West Bank ticketing operation before joining the registry in 2020. Lead editor for the Luxor Pass file and the Aswan-site sub-files.

Sara Habashi — Cairo and Giza sites editor. Born Cairo 1986. Trained in hospitality management at the American University in Cairo (2004–08) and then seven years at the Marriott Cairo's concierge service before joining the registry in 2021. Lead editor for the Giza Pass and the Combined Cairo-museum pass.

Yasser Kamel — resident-card and special-discount editor. Born Beni Suef 1990. Trained as a public-administration graduate at Helwan University (2008–12) and then six years at the Tourism Authority's residency-documentation office before joining the registry in 2022. Lead editor for the expat-resident card and the student/senior discount tracking.

The administrator, Mona Said, has handled subscriptions, accounting, the public correspondence inbox and the Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday office hours since 2020.

The cooperative's office library and the visitor logbook.

The Beni Suef office library is a working reference resource for the cooperative's editors and for visiting researchers. The library holds approximately two hundred and forty volumes covering Egyptian tourism policy, museum administration, antiquities law, and the broader scholarly literature on cultural-heritage visitor management. The visitor logbook, kept on the reception room's working table, records every visitor's name, institutional affiliation and the date of visit; the logbook is a useful internal record of which researchers have consulted the cooperative's archive and supports the cooperative's ongoing relationships with the academic and travel-trade communities.

Cooperative governance.

The cooperative is governed by the four editors as an editorial board. Major editorial decisions require a three-of-four board vote. The chair role rotates between Reem, Hassan and Sara on a three-year cycle; Reem holds the current term through December 2026.

Funding and editorial independence.

Reader subscriptions covered approximately fifty-five percent of revenue in 2025. The Beni Suef Tourism Foundation research grant — paid annually since 2020 — contributed thirty percent. The remaining fifteen percent came from small consultancy contracts the editors hold privately, all declared in the December transparency note. No funding from the Egyptian Tourism Authority itself (we maintain explicit editorial distance from our regulatory subject), no funding from any commercial travel-trade entity, no sponsorship from tour operators or pass-reselling intermediaries. Five sponsorship approaches declined since 2020.

The documentary stance.

The registry documents what the Tourism Authority's framework says, what the gate staff actually do, and where the two diverge. We do not advocate for changes to the framework; we do not lobby the Tourism Authority on any policy question; we do not write opinion pieces on whether the fee structure is too high or too low. The documentary stance is the registry's only credibility, and the working framework that produces it is openly published on the methodology page.

The Beni Suef office.

The office is the first floor above the Suq district's central tea house on Sharia al-Tahrir, three blocks from the Beni Suef corniche. The office has three rooms: reception, the editors' working room with the quarterly verification table, and an archive room with the printed bulletin archive since 2019 and the cooperative's reference library on Egyptian tourism policy. Office hours Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from 10:00 to 14:00 Cairo time.

Visiting researchers and the reader-observer network.

The cooperative's reader-observer network — currently forty-three travellers, fourteen expatriate residents and six tour operators across Egypt and beyond — files structured pass-usage reports that supplement the editors' own site verification. The network supplies the gate-experience evidence that distinguishes the registry's documentation from a simple summary of the published framework. Reader-observers receive an honorarium of EGP 200 per accepted report. The office hosts approximately twelve visiting researchers per year — primarily tourism-policy graduate students and travel journalists working on Egypt-pass topics.

The cooperative's editorial philosophy.

The registry's editorial philosophy rests on three working principles that the editorial board returns to in every annual review. Principle one — document, do not advocate. The registry documents what the Tourism Authority's framework says and what the gate-applied rules actually are. We do not advocate for the framework to change, do not lobby on fee levels, do not write opinion pieces on whether the pass system serves visitors well or badly. The advocacy work is the role of the travel-trade industry associations and the consumer-rights organisations; our role is documentary. Principle two — publish the variance. Where the published framework and the gate-applied rule diverge, we publish both readings openly. The reader, the travel agent, the museum-board member, the Tourism Authority itself can then act on the information; the cooperative does not pick winners. Principle three — independence through transparency. Every funding source, every editor's outside consulting, every refused sponsorship is documented openly in the December transparency note. The transparency is the only credible defence against the inevitable accusation that an industry-tracker is captured by its industry.

The annual external audit and the editorial board's review cycle.

Since 2022 the cooperative commissions an annual external audit of its methodology by a rotating panel of two specialists — typically one tourism-policy academic from a Cairo or Alexandria university, and one travel-industry consultant from an outside firm. The audit reviews the year's verification work against the methodology document, checks the corrections log for completeness, examines the gate-applied-rule documentation across the sites visited that year, and verifies the financial transparency note against the cooperative's accounting records. The audit panel publishes a brief external statement each March; the 2022 to 2025 audit statements have all been positive. The audit is an additional cost (approximately three percent of annual expenditure) that the editorial board considers essential to the registry's credibility.

Visiting researchers and the Beni Suef office library.

The cooperative's office on Sharia al-Tahrir hosts approximately twelve visiting researchers per year — primarily graduate students working on tourism-policy thesis topics from Cairo and Helwan universities, accessibility-policy researchers from advocacy organisations, and travel journalists writing on the Egyptian pass system. The office library, while small (around two hundred and forty volumes), holds the printed corrections-log archive since 2019, the cooperative's bound bulletin archive, and a reference shelf of Egyptian tourism-policy publications. Visitors are welcome by appointment during office hours and asked to log their visit in the office visitor book.

Correspondence.

Write to [email protected] for any matter. Telephone Mona on +20 82 5318 947 during office hours. Postal correspondence to the Sharia al-Tahrir address. Reply within two working days for routine matters.