Lebanon is getting its tourism groove back
July 4, 2017
The holy month of Ramadan is traditionally a slow one for tourism in the Arab region, and the hot streets of Beirut have been somewhat subdued this June. But among those in the hospitality sector, the sense of expectation and excitement for a busy July and August is so palpable one can almost taste it.
For the past six years, tourism in Lebanon has suffered from local insecurity and regional instability, which have caused the number of tourist arrivals drop from 2.17 million in 2010 — considered one of the golden years for tourism in Lebanon — to 1.5 million in 2015, though a tourist bump at the tail end of 2016 brought numbers back up to 1.7 million.