Number of Tourists Reached a 4-Year High in 2015

Lebanon’s tourism sector improved by the end 2015 as the number of incomers surged by 12.05% to reach 1.52M tourists. 

The number of European visitors, grasping 33.29% of the total, augmented by 12.87% y-o-y, to reach 505,264. In details, French tourists, constituting the largest share of European tourists at 27%, went up by a yearly 11.16% to 134,181 visitors. The number of incomers from Germany, the United Kingdom and Turkey also saw respective improvements of 10.05%, 15.11% and 30.39% y-o-y to 74,823, 56,608 and 21,027 in 2015.

The number of Arab tourists, constituting 31.67% of the total, displayed a yearly increase of 4.32%, to record 480,723 by December 2015. Iraqi incomers had the largest share among Arab tourists at 40%, with their number increasing by an annual 1.28% to 191,578, over the same period. Worth mentioning that a large part of Iraqi tourists are actually refugees relocating to Lebanon due to the heightening security developments in their mother country. The number of Egyptian visitors improved by 9.17% from 69,179 to 75,524 while that of the Jordanians increased by 5.61% from 73,822 to 77,960. The number of Saudi incomers also progressed by 4.46% annually to 47,831 by December 2015.

As for American travelers, accounting for the third major portion of total tourists at 17.40%, their number reached 264,041 by the end of 2015, a 17.55% y-o-y increase from the same period last year.

Despite the end of year festivities and the release of the abducted Lebanese soldiers by Al-Nasra Front, the number of tourists declined by 7.04% y-o-y in December to 123,587. In fact, the number of Arab and European tourists decreased by 22.82% and 1.56% to 39,529 and 38,120, respectively compared to the same month last year. More specifically, the steepest decline was noted in the number of Iraqi visitors, representing 11.7% of total tourists in December which reached 14,424 in December 2015 down from 23,391 in December 2014.

Number of Tourists By December

Number of Tourists Reached a 4-Year High in 2015

Source: Ministry of Tourism

 

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