Elie Marouni was appointed Lebanon’s minister of tourism in July 2008 and held the chair until the new cabinet was formed in November 2009. Executive sat with Marouni shortly before he left office in order to discuss the strategy that the ministry had adopted to promote tourism in Lebanon and the major issues and concerns of the tourism industry. E What is the Ministry of Tourism’s marketing strategy to promote Lebanon? We do this in several ways: first, by signing tourism cooperation agreements with other ministries of tourism or other responsible authorities. We sign agreements for tourism exchange and promotion. This year we signed 12 of these, the most important being with Spain, China, Mexico, Kuwait, Egypt and Jordan, among others. Other than that, we are members of the Arab Tourism Organization, which aims to strengthen tourism between Arab countries, and the Lebanese Minister of Tourism (being myself at this
