The fortunes of Beirut’s Phoenicia InterContinental are a chronicle of the ups and downs that Lebanon has experienced since the hotel’s construction in the 1950s. Shuttered during the civil war, the building was restored in the late 1990s, only to have the façade and parts of the interior wrecked again in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Just a year later, the July war also took its toll on the country’s tourism. Running the hotel between its reopening in 2000 and today has been a “rollercoaster experience”, says Mazen Salha, chairman of Societe des Grands Hotels Du Liban (SGHL), which owns the Phoenicia and Le Vendome, a boutique luxury hotel. Related article: Mazen Salha Q&A He adds that the last 12 months made up the most difficult business year in his memory. “Other upheavals that we went through lasted for three or four months. The period that
