What is now the Cairo Marriott was formerly the Gezira Palace Hotel – or Ghezireh Palace Hotel, as in those days the more letters in a word the more authentically foreign it looked. A genuine former royal palace built to house Empress Eugenie, guest of honour at the opening of the Suez Canal, it was sold off when the British declared Khedive Ismail bankrupt. It ended up being leased to the Brussels-based Compagnie Internationale des Grands Hôtels – the hospitality arm of the company behind the famed Orient Express – which had the former khedivial residence remodelled, refitted and opened to paying guests in October 1894. The brochure below dates to not long after.
