August rebound

Lebanon’s traditional gush of summer season optimism has failed to shroud a painful reality – July was a bad month for the $1.5 billion-a-year tourism sector. Hotels, restaurants, and car rental agencies all acknowledged business was down significantly in July, compared to the same period last year. Industry insiders bemoaned, in particular, a relative paucity of Kuwaiti visitors. The latter account for a sizeable portion of Lebanon’s tourist diet in July and August, the country’s two top-earning tourism months that effectively constitute its summer season.Observers said the Kuwaitis failed to materialize in early July because of lingering post-Iraq war malaise, simmering Kuwaiti ire over Beirut’s opposition to the war, late school examinations (delayed because of the war) and July 5 parliamentary elections. “We have been drastically affected,” said Jean Baptiste Pigeon, general manager of the Crowne Plaza hotel on Hamra Street. He acknowledged that the hotel’s occupancy rate for July