Contrasting images portray the tourism business in Lebanon this summer. Visit the downtown of Beirut or the shopping areas popular with guests from the Gulf region, and business is minimal or at best, slow. But go to seaside resorts along the Lebanese coast from the north to the south and you see crowded beaches with vivacious parties that start from, or last into, the morning.
Downtown Beirut, which at this time of the year in stable political conditions would have been packed with Gulf Arabs and foreign tourists spending their money, is barely seeing visitors in the wake of political tensions and security threats that have gripped the country since December 2006.
The whole city should be buzzing with visitors; however, we can only see some expatriates returning to vacation in their homeland. Desperate retailers place their hopes on putting up sales signs and the restaurant scene in the city center has been compacted into a few remaining eateries that get by on serving lunch to the office workers in the area.
But the fun in Lebanon never dies — it just moves elsewhere. In the absence of foreign tourists and despite the uncertainties clouding their horizon, forever-young local revelers of all ages now take care of the tourism business domestically, with their love to party and enjoy their hot summer season.
“Every Sunday we are at the beach in resorts like Ocap or Pangea in Jiyeh. The ambiance is crazy there, places are always crowded during weekends, pool bars are full and loud music just make the place rock even in daylight,” said Rana Arakji and Rachid Chouceir, two young professionals who work in central Beirut but shun the city’s present tristesse when it comes to recreation. Towns to the south of Beirut like Jiyeh and Damour, where a year ago Israeli fighter jets thundered maliciously across the sky, this summer are attracting throngs of beachgoers and Arakji said she has no worries about security.
Beach resorts and water parks are satisfied as the 2007 summer season is moving along. On weekends, cues form at the entrances and many resorts are filled to capacity as locals seek the sun after a hectic week at work.
Locals making up for tourists
“This summer season started very good. We are not affected a lot by the political and security incidents. On Sundays we have almost 2,500 people in our resort,” said Sofie Edde, marketing executive at Edde Sands, a five-star Phoenician-themed 100,000 square-meter beach resort and hotel in Byblos.
Edde Sands CEO, Fadi Edde, believes that if the situation remains as it is now with no major security threats, the resort should witness a decent and reasonable closing of the season. “In 2007 we are dealing with similar numbers as in 2005,” he told Executive.
The life on the beaches defies the months of political instability, a string of bomb blasts, and the images of imported conflict in northern Lebanon around the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian camp where since late May the Lebanese army has been locked in a deadly battle with Islamist militants.
A bit further down the coast from ancient Byblos and Edde Sands, Elie Mechantaf, owner of Cyan Beach in Zouk, was very satisfied with the summer season’s takeoff in June and July. “Cyan Beach is booming this year and I cannot compare it to previous years because this is my best year in terms of performance,” Mechantaf told Executive in a phone interview.
Operators are keeping their fingers crossed that the season will be spared from a repeat of last year’s summer war, which cost the lives of 1,200 Lebanese and destroyed the tourist season.
“In 2006 we didn’t break even, the year was a total loss,” said Fadi Edde. “In our work, we consider May and June as pre-opening cost, and we expect to make revenues in July and August, so when you spend money and don’t get any revenues, it will be a total loss.”
Encouraged by the good start of his 2007 season, Mechantaf said he is planning to expand by adding 8,000 square meters to his 15,000 square-meter resort. Banking on profit expectation of $300,000 during the three-month summer season, he bought land adjacent to Cyan Beach; his total investment in the expansion will be a minimum of $1 million.
Mechantaf said he is much more dependent on Lebanese locals than on foreign tourists. For pricey operators, expatriate Lebanese on home visits and tourists are important to reach profit targets. “Edde Sands depends on the buying power of the Lebanese expatriate community. They spend much more than local Lebanese,” Edde said. With 30% of typical revenues coming from foreign tourists and expats, the resort expects that business this year will be as good as, but not better than, 2005.
Beach resorts maturing
With the exception of private clubs restricted to members of local elites, the upscale beach resort business in Lebanon is young. Five to six years ago, the first beach-wise developers started investing in resorts that offered more than cheap lawn chairs, primitive umbrellas, and snacks. The exercise included investments such as carting clean sand to upgrade the shore, setting up boardwalks and acceptable shower facilities, and most of all, building atmosphere and image for resorts carrying names such as Oceana, La Voile Bleue, La Guava, Janna Sur Mer, and so forth.
As they are showing their resilience, the hip places are proving this summer that they are more than the ad-hoc businesses with short-term leases that some of them started out as, even though legal questions over theoretically free beach access rights as well as environmental sustainability issues are ugly smudges on the pearly white vest of the whole industry.
DJ parties and special events in beach resorts also are now an important part of the entertainment staple in the country. In early July, an appearance by Dutch music animal Tiesto drew an estimated 20,000 to Edde Sands, making his concert a testimony to Lebanon’s vivacity in a challenging time — all the more so since the country’s two largest traditional music events, the multi-faceted Baalbeck and Beiteddine festivals, have been cancelled for the second year in a row despite assurances to the contrary made by tourism minister Joe Sarkis in May.
The only festival scheduled to proceed normally (at time of this writing) is Byblos Festival. Incidentally, its three-week program from rock to soul will take place almost on the beach; one of the four shows in the festival will be five performances of Zenobia, advertised as an epic by Mansour Rahbani that celebrates the queen of ancient Palmyra as “the first voice of liberation in the East” who refused to bow to the power of the greatest empire of her age.
Beach resorts in the north and south will decorate the rest of the summer with less weighty lore, having put a number of concerts with international DJs and local performers on their calendars. In the long run, resort operators bet on special events as increasingly important components in their income mix. Edde said organizing the Tiesto party brought double benefits of marketing the resort and giving his team experience in organizing and running a large show. This will lead more companies or individuals to want to stage events at Edde Sands, he said.
Having sun, local crowds, and parties going for themselves, trendy beach resorts seem to count among the few enterprises in Lebanon whose outlook for 2007 is not downcast. They hope, however, that the country will somehow progress to political normalcy and then things will be a lot better — even on the beach.
