The English name of Sharm El Sheikh is a borrowing of the Egyptian Arabic شرم الشيخ, šarm aš-šayḵ and, as such, does not have a fixed romanisation. There are documented uses of alternate spellings such as Sharm el Sheikh and Sharm el-Sheikh, sometimes within the same news article.

Sharm El Sheikh is sometimes referred to as the “City of Peace” (مدينة السلام, madinet es-salām), referring to the large number of international peace conferences that have been held there.

Amongst Egyptians and also many visitors, the name of the city is commonly shortened to “Sharm” (Egyptian Arabic: [ʃɑɾm]), which is its common name in Egyptian Arabic.

Sharm El Sheikh’s major industry is foreign and domestic tourism, owing to its landscape, year-round dry climate with long hot summers and warm winters and its long beaches. Its waters are clear and calm for most of the year and have become popular for various water sports, particularly recreational scuba diving and snorkelling. There is an opportunity for scientific tourism in the city due to the diversity of marine life, as it contains 250 different types of coral reefs and 1000 types of fish.

These natural resources, together with its proximity to tourist markets in Europe, have stimulated rapid growth in tourism in the region. The number of resorts has increased from three in 1982 to ninety-one in 2000. Guest nights also increased in that period from sixteen thousand to 5.1 million. International hotel companies that currently operate in the city include Accor (Mövenpick, Novotel, Rixos), Deutsche Hospitality (Steigenberger), Four Seasons, Hilton (DoubleTree), Marriott (Renaissance, Sheraton), and Rotana, with categories of three to five stars. In 2007, the first aqua park hotel resort opened in the area. The four-star Aqua Blu Sharm Resort was built on the Ras Om El Seid, with an area of 133,905 square metres 

Sharm is also home to a congress center, located along Peace Road, where international political and economic meetings have been held, including peace conferences, ministerial meetings, world bank meetings, and Arab League meetings. The Ras Muhammad National Park, at the southernmost tip of the peninsula, has been designated a national park, protecting the area’s wildlife, natural landscape, shoreline and coral reef. There are a number of international hotels and restaurants in the centre of Sharm El Sheikh, in the area known as Naama Bay, with golf courses and other leisure facilities further up the coast.

The Nabq Managed Resource Protected Area is a 600-square-kilometre (230 mi²) area of mangroves, coral reefs, fertile dunes, birds and wildlife.

As of 2012, nationals from the EU and the US do not require a visa for travel to Sharm El Sheikh if the visit is for fourteen days or less, although those travelling outside the Sinai area may still require a visa, which is purchasable for a small fee on arrival.Visitors are often ushered into a queue to buy a visa after entering the airport upon landing.