The GCC travel advisory against Lebanon

The GCC travel advisory against Lebanon should be lifted, says Fadi Abboud, Lebanon Minister of Tourism, hoping to convince regional authorities that the situation there is stable and under control. “Gulf officials should re-consider these decisions as the situation in Lebanon does not justify them,” he said. Recently, the Gulf countries issued the travel advisory urging its citizens to avoid travel to Lebanon, primarily because of the ongoing fighting in Syria. Abboud is visiting Gulf countries to promote Lebanese tourism in the region,He said that currently there are about 10,000 tourists from the Gulf in Lebanon. He remarked that this number is small for this time of the year, and was a result of the travel warning. Last year, the number of tourist from Gulf countries had touched 250,000. “We expected the number of tourists to be similar to last year if authorities would work to lieft the advisory.” Pointing to the investment opportunities in Lebanon, he remarked that the Gulf investment in Lebanon has reached $2 billion in 2012. Tourism contributes about $7 billion to Lebanon’s economy, or about 20 per cent of GDP. Tourism has declined by 6 per cent in the five months of 2012, he said. “Lebanon is a very safe country, and the theft rate is very low in comparison to other tourist destinations,” he said. He said the Gulf market is very important to tourism in Lebanon, with 40 per cent of tourists to Lebanon coming from Arab countries. Gulf nationals contributed about 50 per cent to the income from tourism.from gulfnews.com