A break in the clouds

Executive sat with the Minister of Tourism Michel Pharaon to discuss ‘Live Love Lebanon’, the latest campaign to attract foreigners and Lebanese expats to the country, as well as the ministry’s views on the tourism season this past summer and its plans for 2015.   What was the aim of the ‘Live Love Lebanon’ campaign? And how would you assess its success, now that the summer tourism season has ended? The campaign had [several] objectives, the first of which was to revive and revitalize tourism in Lebanon after three years of deterioration on the political, economic, touristic and security levels, which saw a drop of more than 40 percent in tourism and created a real mood of depression in the country.  When I came to the ministry, I knew that there was an agreement for security. When I arrived, I saw a real depression in the tourism sector and it