According to the Ministry of Tourism, the number of tourists visiting Lebanon, in 2018, displayed a 5.77% year-on-year (y-o-y) progress, where the total number of tourists went up from 1.86M to 1.96M. This increase is owed to the yearly growths recorded in tourist arrivals from Europe and America which together comprised 54.16% of total tourists in Lebanon.
In a geographical breakdown, Lebanon witnessed a growth in the number of European tourists that constituted 35.95% of the total; it grew by 10.37% y-o-y to 705,969 by December 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, Turkey, France, and Germany by 12.93% to 79,104 , 8.57% to 37,013, 8.40% to 32,744 , 6.79% to 181,321 and 5.31% to 104,167 respectively , outpaced the slight decrease of 0.96% recorded by the incomers from Sweden that stood at 39,480 in 2018 .
Arab countries, representing 28.64% of all tourists, recorded a slight increase of 0.22% to stand at 562,535 in 2018 on the back of the significant rise in the number of Egyptian incomers from 83,405 in 2017 to 92,173 in 2018 and in the number of Jordanian tourists by 2.04% to stand at 92,920 in 2018. However, this increase wasn’t enough to outweigh the plunge in the number of GCC and Iraqi tourists. In details, tourists from the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait decreased by 7.86% to 1,770, 7.82% to 211,589, 2.96% to 61,547 and 1.62% to 40,382 respectively.
As for the numbers of American and Asian travelers, they respectively rose by 9.23% and 3.01% in 2018 to 357,764 and 140,716 tourists.
In December alone, tourist numbers reflected a healthy 14.45% progress to reach 162,506 compared to the same period in 2017.
Number of European Tourists by December
Source: Ministry of Tourism