The Egyptian government has long promoted the glittering resort of Sharm el-Sheikh as both the crown jewel of its tourist industry and a redoubt of security against jihadi violence.
As a militant insurgency based in northern Sinai has raised alarms about travel to broad sections of the country, the Egyptian authorities and Western governments held out Sharm el-Sheikh as a safe haven. The steady flow of sun-seekers -- increasingly, budget-minded Russians -- was a bright spot in Egypt's deeply troubled tourism industry.
Now, the crash of a Russian passenger jet that took off from Sharm el-Sheikh has threatened the resort's reputation.
Although the cause of the crash remains unknown pending an investigation of the wreckage, an Egyptian arm of Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility. The claim has focused attention on the possibility that the militants might have penetrated the Sharm el-Sheikh airport in order to plant an explosive inside the airplane.
Even the plausibility of such an unconfirmed claim underscores the tenuous state of both public security and the tourist industry in Egypt more than two years after President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi led a military takeover which promised to restore public order. His government continues to battle parallel columns of Islamist violence -- the hardened jihadists of IS in Sinai, and a growing movement of young amateurs who might have once voted for Islamist political parties, but have turned to bombings or shootings as retribution against perceived supporters of the military takeover.
Hundreds of members of the Egyptian security forces and a growing number of civilians have died in the fighting.
"Even though up until now the fighting has been mainly confined to the North Sinai and the Western desert, this government has a long way to go to be able to contain the militant groups, and that is why something like this could be so plausible," said Mokhtar Awad, a research associate at the Centre for American Progress who tracks Islamist violence in Egypt.
Sharm el-Sheikh's reputation for security is only 10 years old. In July 2005, militants detonated three coordinated bombs that ripped through an upscale hotel, a local market and a parking lot, killing at least 90 people. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Egyptian history at the time, and it came less than a year after a similar bombing in another resort to the north, at Taba.
A few months later, bombings in the nearby town of Dahab killed more than 20 people.
The Egyptian government, dependent on tourism for hard currency and shaken by the blow to its most important resort, responded with a sweeping technological upgrade of Sharm el-Sheikh's security that has won widespread praise from other governments.
Diplomats invited to inspect the security infrastructure describe a vast system of video surveillance, with special equipment to detect explosive material in passing vehicles. Both the US and British governments have said Sharm el-Sheikh, at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, is a place of relative security even as they have escalated warnings about travel elsewhere, especially in the rest of the northern areas of the peninsula. But in a sign of concern about the unknown circumstances behind the crash, the US embassy on Monday instructed employees not to travel anywhere on the Sinai Peninsula pending the outcome of the investigation. The embassy had previously made an exception for air travel to Sharm el-Sheikh.
In large numbers, holidaymakers from Russia, Germany, Italy and Britain still visited the resort's beaches during the years of political turmoil that followed the 2011 uprising against then president Hosni Mubarak.
Tourism officials encouraged airlines to start direct flights to Sharm el-Sheikh, to capitalise on the resort's popularity. Tourists also were becoming wary of travelling to Cairo.
But even with its relative isolation, Sharm el-Sheikh has hardly been immune to the wider tourism crisis.
Mina Badr, owner of the Blue Stone Restaurant in Sharm el-Sheikh, said while the number of tourists remained steady, many buy all-inclusive package deals and tend to spend less.
Business has been increasingly unpredictable, Mr Badr said, and his 4-month-old restaurant is losing money.
Like many business owners in the resort town, Mr Badr was anxiously awaiting the outcome of the crash investigation.
"If someone brought it down, things might be ruined," he said.
Already, tour operators in Russia said they were feeling the effects of the plane crash.
In comments quoted by the Interfax news agency, Irina Tyurina, press secretary of the Russian Tourism Industry Union, said that tourism agencies were reporting up to a 50% drop in sales on Saturday, the day of the crash. ©2015 The New York Times