The slow rebirth of Valentine’s Day

As Valentine’s Day looms closer, store displays turn red, email inboxes are flooded with wine or chocolate promotions and prices for the day’s favorite mascot — the rose — doubles. Falling after the sluggish month of January, retailers see in Valentine’s Day an opportunity to bring life back into the sector. Lebanese retailers are no exception though it seems fate has been working against them for the past decade. Bassem Fahham, owner of Sparks Balloons and Gifts shop in Kroitem, Beirut, remembers how eagerly consumers in Lebanon adopted Valentine’s Day back in the mid-1990s, aided by the many western TV shows which portrayed that special day. This infatuation with the day continued to flourish, until that fateful February 14th in 2005 when former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri was assassinated in Downtown Beirut, in an explosion that also killed 22 others. The immediate effects of the event —  unprecedented street protests