Living Heritage: Merette El Sayed On Balancing Cultural Stewardship And Commercial Viability At The Grand Egyptian Museum

In November 2025, the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) staged a much-anticipated opening ceremony, marking the culmination of a vision that dates back more than three decades. Situated on the Giza plateau, just two kilometers away from the pyramids of Giza, the GEM, which covers a total area of almost 500,000 square meters, is the largest museum in the world dedicated to a single civilization. Home to more than 50,000 artifacts spanning the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms through to the Greek and Roman periods, the GEM’s collections include the complete King Tutankhamun collection, the reconstructed wooden ships of King Khufu, and an 11-meter-tall red granite statue of King Ramses II, which greets visitors in the entrance hall as they enter.

But the GEM is far more than a repository of antiquities. It also features interactive, augmented reality halls that allow visitors to see temples as they stood thousands of years ago and explore the submerged city of ancient Alexandria, alongside temporary immersive exhibitions, a specialized research library and restoration center, conference halls, and a complex of restaurants, cafes, and retail outlets. One of the most notable features of the museum, however, lies not in its design, curation, or even its collections, but in its business model. The GEM, a public-private partnership (PPP) between Legacy Development and Management (a subsidiary of Egyptian real estate development company Hassan Allam Holding) and the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, is one of the most high-profile examples of such a model being applied to a national heritage asset.

Speaking to Inc. Arabia, Merette El Sayed, CEO of Legacy, says that the partnership enables the government to retain ownership and custodianship of the heritage asset, while her company manages and operates the services, facilities, and visitor-facing experience under a long-term contract. “The structure is intentionally designed, so that each party operates within its area of expertise,” El Sayed explains. “Core heritage functions such as restoration, artefact security, and curatorial oversight remain within the government mandate. Legacy, as the private operator, manages the broader operational ecosystem, including hospitality, visitor services, retail, events, facility management, and overall destination performance. This ensures that the experience delivered matches international standards, while protecting the integrity of the collection.”

By introducing this management model, the GEM is thus setting a precedent that could inform how heritage organizations across Egypt, and beyond, collaborate with the private sector. But how does a private sector organization build commercial viability into a cultural institution like the GEM? El Sayed replies by highlighting that the GEM’s model is built around multiple revenue streams, led by ticketing and supported by retail, hospitality, venue rentals, educational services, cultural programming, and sponsorships. “The model is diversified by design to ensure long-term sustainability,” she elaborates. “Partnerships are carefully selected based on where they add value to the overall experience. We look at where technology, cultural collaborations, or sector expertise can elevate the destination rather than simply generate income.”

Merette El Sayed, CEO of Legacy Development and Management, at the Grand Egyptian Museum. 

The museum’s audience segmentation reflects that broader vision, too, with the GEM designed to cater to international tourists as well as domestic visitors, families, schools, universities, corporates, and cultural communities. Critically, notes El Sayed, the objective is to frame the GEM as a place that these diverse audiences can frequent regularly, engaging in different activities each time, rather than being a once-in-a-lifetime event. Central to positioning the GEM as a living, evolving heritage asset lies in framing it as a destination ecosystem, rather than a traditional museum—an effort that, El Sayed points out, entails engineering for the entire visitor journey, not just the galleries.

“The experience begins before entry and continues across hospitality, retail, guided tours, events, educational programs, and digital engagement,” she notes. “Every touchpoint is connected and intentionally planned to work as one cohesive experience.” In practice, this has meant selecting retailers and hospitality outlets that run the gamut from established and rising local designers to homegrown F&B concepts that offer a lineup of “Egyptian flavors,” as well as building a regular program of events and cultural activations. “Dining, retail, cultural events, and education are not add-ons,” El Sayed declares. “They are part of how we increase dwell time, improve satisfaction, and encourage repeat visits.”

Here, El Sayed highlights a few of the signature platforms designed to drive visitation to the museum year-round, including GEM Talks, which brings together experts from fields such as archaeology, design, technology, and storytelling to explore the relevance of heritage today. Other initiatives include the GEM Summer Program, which introduces younger audiences to history through interactive learning experiences, GEM Family Weekend, which invites visitors to participate in hands-on workshops and Ancient Egypt-themed activities, the GEM Discovery Challenge, a gamified engagement experience, and the GEM Hackathon, which invites university students and young professionals to develop digital solutions to enhance the visitor experience. Additionally, an ongoing program of concerts and cultural events helps position the museum as an active cultural destination for new audiences.

For El Sayed, developing such rich and diversified programming goes back to Legacy’s foundational vision of what the GEM should be, with the team approaching it less as a project with an opening date, and more as a destination with a long lifecycle. “Sustained relevance is built into our operating model from the start,” she says. “We deliver regular programming that targets audiences across different age groups, supported by a year-round calendar of events, temporary exhibitions, and partnerships that introduce new experiences into the destination. This ensures that the museum is not static. There is always something new to discover, which supports repeat visitation and steady footfall well beyond the initial launch period. Financial resilience is equally structural. The revenue model is diversified across ticketing, hospitality, retail, venue rentals, sponsorships, and cultural programming. We do not rely on a single source of income or seasonal peaks. Instead, we focus on building recurring engagement and recurring revenue streams that support long-term sustainability.”

The interiors of the Grand Egyptian Museum.

El Sayed reveals that the GEM’s model came into being through a phased trial approach, with her and her team working closely with government partners to pilot operations across the museum’s interior spaces, gardens, galleries, hospitality outlets, and visitor services in stages to refine workflows, test visitor flows, integrate technology systems, and calibrate service delivery before the museum fully opened. The learnings from that phase, El Sayed notes, largely inform how it operates today. El Sayed also points to operational discipline as having been key, with data being utilized to monitor visitor behavior, manage flow, and improve performance, while governance structures ensure alignment between cultural priorities and commercial decisions. Together, these pillars help to ensure that growth does not compromise preservation.

According to El Sayed, one of the keys to achieving this balance between heritage and commercial viability lies in Legacy’s deployment of a hybrid talent model that combines culture, operations, service, engineering, technology, retail, and event management, all of which work together under one unified system. “Because there is no direct precedent locally for a destination of this scale, we recruited talent from different industries and brought them into a unified operating culture,” she tells Inc. Arabia. “Some team members come from hospitality backgrounds, others from cultural institutions, and others from large-scale commercial operations. The focus has been on building one shared service mindset aligned with international standards.” As such, Legacy has invested in training, including onboarding service simulations, visitor journey mapping, and guided tour calibration to ensure that every touchpoint delivers the experience expected of a world-class destination.

Looking to the long term, El Sayed suggests that the GEM could, in many ways, become a talent incubator for Egypt’s hospitality sector at large. “I do believe the GEM can become a training ground for the wider tourism and hospitality sector,” she says. “Managing visitor experience at this scale requires capabilities that are transferable across airports, hotels, resorts, cultural sites, and large events. If we continue investing in talent development, the GEM can contribute not only to cultural preservation, but also to raising service standards more broadly across the industry.”

For other operators looking to learn from Legacy’s experience, El Sayed believes that the key lesson is that alignment must remain front and center for PPPs in the culture sector. “At scale, one of the biggest lessons has been that cultural public-private partnerships are not about control; they are about alignment,” she says. “With multiple entities involved, success depends on clarity of roles, shared performance indicators, continuous coordination, and a shared commitment to excellence. What often surprises policymakers is that commercial sustainability and cultural stewardship are not in conflict. When structured correctly, commercial activation strengthens preservation. It generates recurring resources that fund conservation, enhance programming, and ensure that a national heritage asset is not only protected, but alive and evolving for future generations.”

Merette El Sayed, CEO of Legacy Development and Management.

Most importantly, perhaps, El Sayed notes that context is central to the success of the partnership between the GEM and Legacy. And while she believes that other institutions may draw on the model as inspiration, there is no cookie-cutter approach to balancing commercial viability and heritage protection. “The Legacy approach is built around clear role definition and long-term alignment between cultural stewardship and operational sustainability,” El Sayed says. “In principle, elements of this model can be adapted elsewhere, but its success depends heavily on context. A PPP in the cultural space works when responsibilities are clearly structured from the outset. The public sector must retain authority over heritage protection, curatorial integrity, and national priorities. The private operator must focus on service quality, operational efficiency, and commercial activation that supports sustainability without compromising preservation. Equally important is alignment of incentives. Contracts must be structured to encourage long-term performance rather than short-term returns. Governance mechanisms, transparency, and shared performance metrics are critical to maintaining trust between stakeholders.”

“Ultimately, the model is less about replication and more about adaptation,” El Sayed adds. “Each heritage asset operates within its own cultural, economic, and regulatory environment. When the right governance structures and demand fundamentals are in place, partnership models can support sustainability while preserving cultural integrity.” In El Sayed’s opinion, the most fundamental priority is to understand that commercial activity has to be designed to first and foremost serve heritage preservation. As she put it, “Preservation is always the starting point. At the GEM, the heritage asset belongs to the nation, and its protection is not negotiable. Commercial activity is not the objective. It is a tool to support long-term sustainability. When we evaluate decisions, we ask whether they strengthen the integrity, relevance, and experience of the institution. If something compromises preservation or curatorial integrity, it is not aligned with our mandate. At the same time, financial sustainability is essential. Without structured revenue, institutions cannot maintain standards, fund conservation, or invest in programming. The balance comes from ensuring that commercial strategies enhance the visitor experience rather than distract from it.”

And therein lies El Sayed’s key takeaway to other culture operators looking to learn from Legacy’s experience. “My advice to other leaders is to define this hierarchy clearly from the beginning,” she says. “Preservation must come first. Sustainability should serve that purpose. When that alignment is embedded into governance and daily operations, the tension becomes manageable rather than conflicting.”

Pictured in the lead image is Merette El Sayed, CEO of Legacy Development and Management. All images courtesy the Grand Egyptian Museum.