Lebanon’s tourism industry performed well in 2003 despite the war in Iraq and a stagnant world economy, with a little over 818,000 visitors in the first three quarters of the year. This is compared with almost 775,000 for the same period last year (see Table 1 on the following page), or an increase of 5.6%.

March, April and May saw a drop in the usual tourism activity (falling by 32%, 23% and 5.3% respectively) as the world was observing events in the Middle East with uncertainty and travellers in the region held back, planning their vacations as late as possible.

However, by June, tourism figures rebounded and August saw a 23% increase from 2001. As expected, the majority of visitors in 2003 were from Arab countries, making up 45% of the total. More specifically, visitors from Saudi Arabia comprised almost 38% of Arab visitors in September, with 15,543 arrivals, followed by Jordan with 22.6% and Kuwait with 11.1%.

Travel from Europe also improved by approximately 6% from the previous year, totalling a little over 200,000 visitors, or one quarter of international visits. The majority came from France, Germany and England. ...Full Story