According to the Ministry of Tourism, the number of tourists visiting Lebanon, in the first ten months of 2018, displayed a 5% year-on-year (y-o-y) progress, where the total number of tourists went up from 1,592,301 to 1,671,891. This increase is owed to the yearly growths recorded in tourist arrivals from Europe and America which together comprised 54.4% of total tourists in Lebanon.
In a geographical breakdown, Lebanon witnessed a growth in the number of European tourists that constituted 35.9% of the total; it grew by 9.63% y-o-y to 600,205 by October 2018 on the back of the rise of the number of tourists from the majority of the European countries. In details, the progress in the number of tourists coming from UK, Italy, France, Turkey and Germany by 12.97% to 67,840 , 7.06% to 30,733 , 6.68% to 154,780 , 5.73% to 26,342 and 4.33% to 92,195 respectively , outpaced the decrease of 3.60% recorded by the incomers from Sweden that stood at 33,757.
Arab countries, representing 28.1% of all tourists, recorded a decrease of 2.63% to stand at 470,526 by October 2018. This drop is heavily influenced by the number of Iraqi and Saudi incomers, which recorded an annual decrease of 4.76% and 16.86% to stand at 184,923 and 48,885 respectively by Oct 2018. Moreover, the number of tourists from Jordan, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates dropped by 0.32% to 78,277, 12.56% to 32,897 and 20.01% to 1,415 respectively. On the contrary, the number of incomers from Egypt recorded an annual increase of 6.51% from 70,213 to from 74,784.
As for the numbers of American and Asian travelers, they respectively rose by 8.61% and 1.49% y-o-y to 309,575 and 116,267 tourists.
In October alone, tourist numbers reflected a healthy 16.36% progress to reach 166,146 compared to the same period in 2017.
Number of Tourists By October
Source: Ministry of Tourism