The latest figures released by the Ministry of tourism revealed that the number of tourist arrivals to Lebanon increased by 4.22% year-on-year (y-o-y) by the second month of 2019 to settle at 231,055.
The number of visitors from the Arab countries (constituting 36.58% of total arrivals) rose by an annual 11.19% , from 76,014 to 84,519 visitors by February 2019. In fact, Saudi Arabia ended the travel ban against Lebanon, two weeks after a new cabinet was formed. This decision boosted the number of Saudi tourists to 10,041 tourists by February 2019 ,up from 6,009 recorded during the same period last year. Similarly, the number of tourists from Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan rose by 53.19%, 18.75%, 17.59% and 5.48% y-o-y to 8,099, 228 , 15,598 and 11,988 respectively over the same period. On the contrary, visitors from Iraq (12.4% of the total) slipped by yearly 11.88%, to reach 28,558 tourists by February 2019.
As for European tourists, (which grasped 34.7% of total tourists), they added a yearly 5.69% to 80,226 travelers by February 2019. In details, the number of British, German, Turkish, Swedish and Italian visitors increased by 8.66%,2.78%,18.81%,12.76% and 5.80% to 9,067 , 8,939 , 5,773 , 4,152 and 4,706 tourists respectively .As for the number of French tourists , they slid by 1.14% to 19,943 during the same period.
However, the number of American tourists, (13.9% of the total), increased by 4.74% y-o-y to 32,109 visitors by February 2019 owing it to the 6.23 % and 1.39% annual upticks recorded in the number of visitors coming from the USA and Canada, to reach 16,313 and 10,088 visitors, respectively. Also the rise in the number of Brazilian tourists by 15.10% to 2,919 positively contributed to the overall American tourists’ growth.
Cumulative Number of Tourists by February
Source: Ministry of Tourism