Tourists flood Lebanon despite escalation, power ration

The Lebanese tourism industry witnessed an unprecedented boom this summer but fell short of realizing its pre-war status, analysts here said.

'Tourism has always been a Lebanese legacy and this year, the sector saw remarkable improvement,' said Osama Haidar, an economic analyst. Haidar told Alternative in an interview that accurate numbers about the influx of tourists into the country could not be precisely given for the time being.

'We have to wait until the end of September before giving an estimate,' said Haidar adding that the influx of tourists included people from different nationalities. 'The country mainly depends on gulf citizens but there are Lebanese expatriates who come to visit their home country also.'

Haidar said that despite the increase in the number of tourists, revenue of this sector has not been distributed evenly. 'Gulf tourists are attracted to three main areas namely downtown Beirut and the mountain villages of Aley and Bhamdoun.'

As a matter of fact, residents of the two mountain villages expressed joy over the crowd of tourists this year. In Bhamdoun, restaurants, coffee shops and hotels were overcrowded. 'Our season is the best so far if compared to the past few years,' said Ali Ali, a building owner.

Ali argued that this season started off late because of the Iraq war which delayed the school year in most gulf states. 'We had to wait but once they started coming, they were too good to handle.'

Ali said that prices fluctuated with demand. 'I rented out my first apartment for $90 a night. A week later, the price per night shot up to $150,' he added. According to Ali, tourists book first in hotels. Once hotels are full, they start looking for apartments.

But Anwar Abdul-Khaliq, a hotel receptionist, said that gulf citizens with big families prefer furnished apartments to hotels. 'For a family of six, it is always money-saving to rent an apartment than to rent three hotel rooms.'

Restaurants and other tourist facilities also looked satisfied with the number of visitors who came to Bhamdoun this summer. For this purpose, several food businesses on top of them American franchises rushed to open their Bhamdoun branches.

Hardies, Starbucks, KFC and other Lebanese franchises opened branches here. Evidently, their summer investment paid off. 'Just look at the number of customers,' commented a waiter at one of the coffee shops. 'You don't need my opinion on this, just take a look and you'd figure out that our season has gone very well.'

Businesspeople seemed also happy that some disturbances did affect the tourists' mood. 'There were some skirmishes with Israel in the South and on other occasions electricity went off,' said Ali. 'Still, tourists did not disrupt their vacation.'

Khaled Ahmed, from the UAE, said that what attracted him most in Lebanon was its cool climate and the elegance of its people and their tourist facilities.

Asked whether escalation in the southern Lebanese borders bothered him, Ahmed said that he knew it was far to the south. 'We're not idiots and we know politics. It was only a limited operation that could not develop into a full scale war,' he told Alternative.

'Electricity cuts did not bother us either. Most businesses here are well-equipped to contain urgencies such as electricity ration that was never as severe,' he added.

Bhamdoun business owners said that they expected the season to be concluded by the end of this month. 'Our customers told us that schools start by the beginning of September and that they would end their summer vacations a week prior to schools.'

Meanwhile, other Lebanese business owners expressed dissatisfaction with the uneven distribution of tourists. 'They went from the airport straight to downtown and then to Aley and Bhamdoun,' said Ghassan Youness, a cloth shop owner in Hamra.

'The tourist influx here is minimal. They either come in small numbers or they never show up at all. Our season wasn't as good as expected,' according to Youness who also said that the government did not attract tourists to the different Lebanese areas.

'Hamra Street was dug up throughout summer. If you go to Baalbek, for instance, the road is not illuminated and so on. The government should have made sure to take care of all the logistics that would guarantee that tourists visit most Lebanese areas,' he intoned.