Art with no admirers

Tourism, that perennial contributor to Lebanon’s coffers, could be heading for a dry spell. The deteriorating domestic political situation coupled with widespread regional unrest has made for an arid start to the year, and things aren’t looking up for the rest of 2011. “The closer we get to summer without a government, the more the tourism sector will be negatively affected since tourists won’t wait until the last moment to [decide] where to go,” said Marwan Mikhael, head of research at BLOMInvest Bank.  Tourism’s direct contribution to Lebanon’s economy amounts to some 10 percent of annual gross domestic product; including indirect contributions (profits of tourism spent in other sectors of the economy), tourism amounts to around one third of the country’s economic output, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC). Some 205,000 tourists came to Lebanon in the first two months of 2011, a drop of 12.7 percent