Lebanon’s summer tourism becomes the lifeline for the hospitality operators

Published on : Monday, August 2, 2021

In the middle of an increasingly unstable year, in Lebanon, a beam of hope has shown up in the form of a huge rush of influx in terms of expats and tourists benefiting from the damaged exchange rate, where the lira has lost close to 80 percent of its value, making this Arabic speaking country extremely attractive for the ones with dollars to spend.

This expectation may be short lived, although, as rising operational challenges outshine the positive financial effect made by summer visitors’ spending, F&B and hotel operators told Arabian Business.

This season, Lebanese expats comprise majority of visitors to the country particularly since many of them couldn’t visit their home country for more than a year due to COVID restrictions. Approximately, 450,000 Lebanese so far this summer, residing in the GCC and Africa has visited Lebanon, president of the Lebanese Hotels Association Pierre Achkar informed the Kuwait News Agency.

“Those who did not visit Lebanon last year because of Covid-19 came this year and are benefiting from the exchange rate,” said Toni Rizk, CEO of hospitality management company TRI Concepts.

“Although we are increasing our prices (which are in Lebanese lira as per the country’s law) to match the dollar exchange rate, we are still retaining our customers since they find it cheaper than other vacation destinations. If it were not for those expats, we would not have been able to survive the season,” he continued.