Lebanon hopes to woo 2 million tourists in 2009

Lebanon hopes to woo 2 million tourists in 2009

Lebanon hopes to have wooed two million tourists by the end of 2009 after record arrivals in February, the director general of the tourism ministry told AFP on Monday.

Ministry figures show that 96,902 foreigners visited Lebanon in February.

"It is a record compared to the past six years," when less than 70,000 visitors came in February — considered a low season for tourists, said Nada Sardouk.

"At this pace we will be able to reach two million visitors by the end of the year," she added.

Sardouk linked the increase in arrivals "to the calm that has prevailed since the election of President Michel Sleiman" in May 2008, after deadly street battles between rival factions pushed Lebanon close to civil war.

Tourism in Lebanon — a major tourist destination for Arab visitors from the oil-rich Gulf monarchies — had taken a beating in recent years after a string of political assassinations following the Beirut bomb blast which killed ex-premier Rafiq Hariri in February 2005.

In 2006, Israel and Lebanon”s Shiite militia Hezbollah fought a devastating summer war, while the following year the army battled with Al-Qaeda inspired Islamists in a Palestinian refugee camp.

But tourism made a dramatic recovery in 2008 with the arrival of 1.3 million visitors in the Mediterranean country, often called the “Switzerland of the Middle East”.