Asked what his expectations were for this summer’s tourist season, Philippe Tabet, owner of several Sour hotels and restaurants, including Dar Alma Hotel, paused briefly before announcing the now eight-month-long armed confrontation in southern Lebanon had forced him to shut his doors.

Tabet, who had to let go of around 70 staff members, says he doesn’t “see the situation getting better anytime soon.” He has closed down his operations but says he’ll keep some services running. “Everything is uncertain but I am, however, open to partially operating a few of my hotel rooms should there be any guests that seek accommodation this summer.”

Further up north, Marc Abboud, owner of AYLA, a restaurant in Jbeil, where he is also the district’s coordinator for Lebanon’s restaurant owners syndicate, says they are also “taking things one day at a time.”

Unable to provide any projections, Abboud and many others in the tourism sector are anxiously waiting to see how things will unravel this summer. A worry not without cause, as Israel’s brutal military offensive in Gaza nears its ninth month, and with Hezbollah exchanging fire with Israel on a near-daily basis since October. In the last two weeks, increasingly aggressive rhetoric and military action have threatened an escalation beyond Lebanon’s southern borders.

“The number of people coming from abroad will solely depend on the situation, and any change in current events will either have a positive or negative impact, but nobody can forecast this summer’s outlook for sure,” said Jean Beyrouthy, president of the syndicate of beaches and resorts. “But with time passing and plane tickets getting more expensive, we don’t expect any substantial tourism similar to the one experienced last year,” he added.

The country had recorded some 2.8 million visitors between June and August last year — a season that had exceeded expectations — for a total revenue of $5.41 billion in 2023. That revenue accounted for 30.2 percent of Lebanon’s 2023 GDP.

The boom came after three consecutive weak summer seasons, between the COVID-19 pandemic, the Beirut Port explosion and the economic crisis, which led to shortages across the board, including in electricity and gas.

Who can Lebanon expect this summer?

Since October, and until today, countries around the world have been issuing travel advisories warning against visits to Lebanon, explained Pierre Achkar, president of the hotel owners’ syndicate.

The impact of those warnings, coupled with the uncertainty linked to the war, has already translated into a drop in the number of passengers flying to and from Lebanon. According to figures released by the Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport and compiled in Byblos Bank’s Lebanon This Week report, the number of arriving passengers reached 1.14 million in the first five months of 2024, a decrease of 5.4 percent compared to the 1.2 million passengers recorded in the same period of 2023.

“We’re expecting a minimum of 60 to 75 flights per day between June and August, and each flight can accommodate an average of 140 passengers. If we multiply the numbers we’re looking at approximately 8,000 daily visitors – but mainly Lebanese expats,” says Aimee Achkar, general manager at Tania Travel.

Based on the projections provided by Achkar, the influx of incomers between June and August this year could be estimated to reach approximately 728,000, or a 74 percent decrease compared to the previous year. Tania Travel’s general manager estimates that roughly 70 to 80 percent of those incoming visitors will be Lebanese, a percentage not too far from those of the previous years. Data from 2022, showed that 63 percent of that year’s visitors to Lebanon were Lebanese expats.

Another factor pushing visitors to reconsider their travel plans is the fact that travel insurance to Lebanon is either hard to come by, or has become five times more expensive to purchase, Achkar noted.

“We’ve been getting requests for last-minute bookings, only to have customers suddenly cancel their trips at the slightest whisper or bad news. It’s been a series of ups and downs,” lamented Nadine Chahny, incoming manager at travel agency Nakhal. Like other players in the market, the fate of the summer season also remains uncertain for her.

For Nagi Morkos, hospitality consultant and founder of Hodema Consulting Services, this season will be “a last-minute summer,” whereby if the geopolitical situation were to stabilize, there could be a last-minute rush of visitors.

Hotels and restaurants

According to Beyrouthy, the spillover in the south has already cost the tourism sector upwards of $2 billion in lost business activity since the start of the war in October, and with the majority of visitors being Lebanese expats this summer, it is likely that some lines of services within the sector will thrive more than others.

Restaurants and nightlife venues may well be working, but it’s hotels that have taken, and will continue to take, the biggest hit. “Last year’s hotel occupancy was around 45 percent during the summer, and while we cannot estimate any numbers, we believe it will be drastically lower this season,” said Achkar.

“Expats that visit Lebanon generally have houses which they come to stay in, and are less likely to book hotel stays, apart from the occasional three to four days they may book to spend time in touristic areas by the beach or in the mountains.”

Occupancy has ranged between 5 to 20 percent since October, with an average of less than 10 percent in most hotels, he explains, and with the majority of visitors only being expats this summer, this number will not necessarily improve. Achkar says as much as 99 percent of hotels are “partially closed,” operating only a specific number of rooms and parts of their hotels.

He, however, does not fail to highlight that the majority of the diaspora residing in Africa come from southern Lebanon, and with the constant attacks being launched over the region, he believes that this community may opt to spend their vacation around Beirut or further up in the north, which could boost economic activity in those regions that are deemed relatively more stable.

As for restaurants, Morkos highlights that “they’re doing well, but they’re mostly relying on their domestic clientele that has access to fresh dollars and the few expats that will be around this summer.” Nonetheless, he says restaurant owners remain worried amid ongoing volatility, as they usually wait for the summer season to stack up on cash, ahead of more difficult times during lower seasons like winter.

Morkos says people already living in Lebanon are going out to eat, and they alone cannot sustain an entire sector. From his side, Beyrouthy claims that in the absence of substantial visitors, it will be hard to have a four-month summer season – extending to September – as locals’ spending frequency will eventually dial down. Regardless, his hope lies within local tourism, as he and many others in the sector wait to see how current events unfold. 

Contacted by L’Orient Today, the syndicate of owners of restaurants in Lebanon did not respond to immediate requests for comment.