In the wake of criticism from a wide array of religious and political leaders, threats of an outright ban, and the very public defacement of certain controversial images from Tyre to Tripoli, the outdoor advertising industry appears ready to engage in a bit of belated self-regulation. To understand exactly what this will mean, EXECUTIVE sat down with Antonio Vincenti, CEO of the billboard giant Pikasso, who has been at the forefront of efforts to repair the industry’s own image.

Q: Describe Pikasso’s current role in the regional advertising marketplace.

A: We are in Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq – Iraq since January. We have forty competitors, more or less, in Lebanon and forty in Jordan and we are the largest company in Lebanon. What we do is rent locations from municipalities or from landlords, we install the boarding and then we rent it by creating networks.

Q: What is at the center of the controversy over outdoor advertising in Lebanon?

A: In a country where you have 17 communities living together, I think we must, if we want to preserve civil peace, respect the beliefs of all of the 17 communities. Now, where does the border stand between what is permitted and what is not permitted? Thank God, general security has a very open minded attitude. Since the beginning of the year (when they became the official censor), we have never had any problem with general security. And I can tell you that they are very liberal in their way of guarding permits. What does this mean? It means we should be very responsible toward this open-minded attitude of the censor. If we say, yes we have had a problem with religious authorities, but we have the permit from general security, then the attitude of general security the next day is to refuse all visuals or half of them, whenever they feel as though they will have the smallest problem – which is a pity. That is why we need to have self-censorship, self regulation – a logical attitude. You know you have visuals you should not accept and you should not accept them nor you should post them.

Q: What will self-regulation entail exactly?

A: After the Association for the Defense of Moral Values in Lebanon asked the justice minister to [crack down] on certain billboards. I advised my colleagues and competitors to take care and be very cautious. We also attempted to create a dialogue among companies. We are all working in the same sector but each one has different values and ethics. So, we suggested, and we will create, groups composed of the president of a municipality, three or four billboard companies, the local association of traders, a representative from the ad agencies and a representative of the ministry for the interior. Our industry objective now is to reduce the number of billboards by 25% in crowded areas. We will start this with the municipality of Antelias. The president there said he would like to be the first one to try this.

Q: Where, from within the industry, have most of the problems with visuals come from?

A: The problem comes from a lot of small agencies – they don’t care, they [produce] vulgar creations and post it everywhere. This is what disturbed and created this problem from all the religious authorities. Now, I would defend to hell pure creativity and the body of a woman on a billboard, if it is done with class, with creativity by a big agency, for a big brand with class. I do not want to be associated with a cheap product, cheap creativity and a vulgar thing.

Q: Some tiles have been taken out of less vulgar billboard visuals though, like one example along the highway to Sidon where Haifa Wehbe’s shoulders were removed.

A: This I am not aware of. A shoulder would never be a problem. Look billboard posters have abused the usage of their billboards, putting images that hurt the feelings of certain people. But if I have a big brand like Aïshti, who wants to put a half naked woman or L’Oreal, I will do it, but I won’t put it in a sensitive area. I would put it in Jounieh for example.

Q: Pikasso has never had a problem with its 3,000 plus billboards?

A: No, thank God. I just had two unipoles for a brand of underwear. I asked them to change the visual and they refused so I stopped the contract. It is not worth it. We want to be responsible. We don’t want to be used by some product or agency in order to sell some products with those provocative visuals.

Q: Has Pikasso ever had to bend the rules in order to compete in the market?

A: We respect the law as much as we can and we only stop respecting the law when our survival is at stake in a city or town. What does this mean? That we would exclude ourselves if we tell a president of a certain municipality, look we don’t install here because it does not respect the law [regarding the spacing of billboards]? Sometimes, I have no choice, or I would exclude the company from the market. If I am in a city where I have installed some billboards and then the council decides to give a competitor space at 50 meters away from me, what should I do? Dismount the billboard and exclude Pikasso from the city?

Q: Since the main advertising law stipulates that billboards should be kept 100 meters apart in all public areas, considering that 60% of the country’s 10,000 billboards are concentrated between Khaldeh and Jounieh, a stretch that only accounts for 10% of the country’s total area, won’t a 25% reduction significantly hurt revenues in these overcrowded, but profitable locations?

A: With the clutter prices are going down. Now, after the industry changes, it will be even better. It will make billboards more attractive and the sector more organized.

Q: Does Pikasso hold any of the billboards where the visual is repeated over and over again ad naseum?

A: No. I think this is not very smart, although there is a saying in Arabic: “Repetition is a good lesson for donkeys.” They believe that, but it is totally wrong.

Q: What’s to say that your 40 or so competitors will do a better job of self-regulating their visuals and, on top of this, agree to voluntarily reduce the number of billboards, especially if some are already apparently willing to push the borders of the industry.

A: Now, I think that general security will be much more rigorous on the permits they will grant and, therefore, you will see that we have less and less of those problematic visuals. I think that our competitors understand that we are all seriously under threat and that we are playing with fire.

Q: According to one published report, Jounieh recently estimated that it should be generating as much as $666,000 per year from taxes on billboards. But, last year, it only saw $26,000 (LL39 million). What accounts for this discrepancy?

A: I will tell you that the figure is wrong in Jounieh. We alone pay the amount of LL40 million annually. I have a colleague who pays LL40 million. I said to myself maybe this is for political reasons, they are attacking the old municipal council. What I have heard though is that a lot of companies have not paid their taxes elsewhere and what I think we should do is haul them in front of the courts and not let them get away with that. We at Pikasso pay rigorously all of our municipal taxes, even during the war, and this is a point of honor for me because it is an obligation.

Q: Although general security has censorship power over billboards, why have you opposed the formation of a specialized body, such as a bureau for the verification of advertising, such as has been recently proposed?

A: In Lebanon, when you create a new authority or council, you will put people together that will argue and fight with each other. We know the people now, and we know that they are good people. We think that one control from general security is more than enough. We have the law, we have to respect the law – we have to be responsible and mature. I think that maneuvering smartly among all those things will be enough.

While, economists tend to measure tourism in visitor numbers, employment and/or contribution to GDP, an equally important gauge is the level of infrastructure development and the intensity of tourism “hotspots” (full of enthusiastic tour guides corralling tours through the nation’s must see sites). Theses abound at the pyramids, the Acropolis, St. Mark’s Square, the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower, but apart from a few weary public servants pointing to Roman columns at Baalbek, this level of tourist development has yet to be seen in Lebanon.

The BCD may be crowded night after night, but the continued total administrative indifference to emergency access needs and non-implementation of regulatory codes (which the ministry of tourism proclaimed only a few months ago would “absolutely be enforced before the summer”) in itself tells a story about the current art of managing tourism development.

But even the BCD still doesn’t radiate the air of a conventional tourism hotspot. Neither do Lebanon’s shores bear the mark of highly developed tourism displayed around the Mediterranean by sun-and-fun coastal villages, which rival their countries’ world-famous tourism landmarks as crowd magnets.

In this light, Lebanon’s tourism development is entering virgin territory. While the role of Beirut as Jet Set playground and entertainment attraction in the 60s has been touted ad nauseam, one local expert believes Lebanon never was a tourism destination, at least in the sense it would have us believe.

“Lebanon doesn’t belong to the classic scheme of tourism development of the type you find in catalogues, with hotels by the seaside, buffets, one tennis court per each 15 or 18 hotel rooms, and so forth,” said Guy Gay-Para, holder of a doctorate in tourism and owner of a café at Byblos Port. “This kind of tourism has been developed years ago in countries with dozens of kilometers of undeveloped seashores, such as Morocco, Tunisia, the Spain of Franco, the Portugal of Salazar. Recent history has shown that there never was Lebanese tourism in the classic sense. Lebanon was merely a convenient and convivial location that fused business and pleasure.”

However historical reflection is, it can be argued, irrelevant. The world of leisure travels today is very different from what it was 30 years ago and it is not enough to simply reproduce the past. Consumer behavior is diversifying and maturing. Providers and destinations have to increasingly deliver tourism products and services that are not only price competitive and high in quality but also satisfy social and environmental criteria.

This has not escaped the ministry of tourism (which, incidentally still has to demonstrate that it has a firm grasp of what is expected of it). “Our goal is really sustainable tourism,” said the ministry’s director general, Nada Sardouk. “We are working to develop the ‘Hidden Lebanon’, the many beautiful areas of the country that are not yet on the map. What we want for tourism is to achieve is social and economic development.”

What the ministry still has to demonstrate is a full grasp of what is expected of it. In a measure under its authority, it is currently completing the country-wide installation of sign posts and plans to issue comprehensive visitor maps. Although tourism conservation and development issues are spread over numerous institutions other than the ministry, and budget restraints hamper its operation, Sardouk said the shortage of funds did not present an insurmountable problem for the ministry’s role in tourism promotion, thanks (rather surprisingly) to inter-ministerial collaboration and (not surprisingly) barter deals with the private sector.

A good tourism infrastructure relies to a great portion on general infrastructure, road and transportation networks, water and electricity supply, waste collection and waste treatment. According to Sardouk, major highways and access roads to key tourist areas are in a good working order, but she agreed that general infrastructure needs more work. “The council of ministers has taken the decision to review roads and electricity supply to all mountain villages during the summer,” she said, and optimistically, “We still need a two to three year action plan for infrastructure development on water and electricity.”

While most of its aspects are public sector, a significant portion of tourism infrastructure is created by the private sector, from hotels and car rental companies to tour operators and visitor attractions. Here, the Lebanese state has instituted some support mechanism for the creation of this tourism infrastructure under the stipulations of the IDAL investment law 360, which since 2002 has benefited several large projects.

Although many operators say that they nonetheless do not see enough effective government support for development and usually rely on their own devices to plan and execute tourism ventures in absence of clear-cut communal or national strategy framework, the private sector does credit the ministry of tourism with making efforts in favor of their development.

Sardouk on her part described the partnership between private sector and ministry as “very good.” She added that the ministry is quietly “cleaning the house” of the tourism sector from defunct operators and that the quality of tour guide services is being upgraded under a new law, which, (rather bizarrely) mandates new guides to graduate from a specialized four-year university course. As far as being able to accommodate growing visitor numbers over the coming five years, she said she did not expect any bottlenecks in the supply of hotel rooms and facilities, tour buses, or any other aspect of the sector.

An essential operative aspect for securing functional tourism infrastructure, where private and public sector may find difficulties, is in understanding demand and matching it to what the country can supply or is willing to develop. Here Lebanon is facing an interesting challenge, because even at today’s relatively low inflows, the “typical” Lebanon tourist cannot be easily defined.

The guest from the Gulf region, whether he arrives by private jet, in economy class, or by car, is commonly viewed as a long-term guest, seeking a summer base, shopping and entertainment. Around Beirut and in the traditional mountain resort communities, ample evidence shows that many providers made a priority of developing facilities that appeal to this category of tourist.

Visitors from the Levant countries represent a different category, yet, with Syrian and Jordanian guests ranking third and fourth (after Saudi and Lebanese clients) for total hotel nights booked last year, this group represents a market potential that one hears little about. Tourists from outside the region comprise two distinct major groups: Lebanese expatriates and non-Arab (largely cultural and religious travelers with no discernable ancestral ties to the Eastern Mediterranean).

For the time being, data of arrivals and hotel stays (of over 160 nationalities by number of persons, total nights and average length of stay) by the ministry of tourism are quantitative. Because research hasn’t been more specific, the ministry for instance broadly assumes that holders of foreign passports are genuinely foreign as many expatriates enter the country using Lebanese identification. However, in case of second and third generation foreign-born Lebanese, this may not be the case (the number of Brazilian, Mexican and Argentinean hotel clients in 2003, all countries where persons of Lebanese descent make a good share of the population, were comparatively high).

The composition of anticipated future visitor streams, thought to include more and younger individual travelers from out of region, complicates the picture further. Behavior patterns in some of the main origin countries of international tourists digress seriously from public moral standards that apply in the Middle East and many western tourists today expect to be able to openly pursue activities that are not accepted under local behavior codes.

Under maturing trends in interests of European and other international travelers on the other hand, Lebanese tourism can expect to encounter strong and increasing demand for tourism products that they cannot readily supply. Beirut, for instance, lacks a museum that would guide visitors through the country’s cultural and communal diversity or explain the aspects of Lebanese history that people from around the world associate with the country – its exposure to the Middle East conflict. Health, eco- and agro-tourism are vacation growth areas that public and private sector have only recently awakened to and where soft and hard infrastructures need yet to be defined.

With tourism acting as the globalization force in culture, intensification of visitor arrivals would oblige operators and authorities here to embark on a steep learning and action curve in avoiding mistakes made elsewhere during the rise of mass tourism, evolve the tourism infrastructure in a multitude of features, and secure development that can enrich the national existence frame on environmental, cultural, social, and economic terms. In all that, the human element is the combining factor at the core of all tourism infrastructures. “The tourist will know if you lie to him,” said experienced tour guide Francoise Hobeika. “You have to make the tourists see the country through your eyes, let them feel the place and sense the beauty of the land so that they enjoy their visit.”

Besides nine main historic and natural attractions that could all be real tourism hotspots, Lebanon according to Sardouk holds about 190 sites of archeological and cultural interest, many of which are not yet incorporated into the tourism infrastructure. Add to that the country’s human capital and you maximize the power of the destination that might even open up even more untapped niche sectors.

“Among European cultural tourists, many are old and lonely,” said Hobeika. “I have seen seniors who left Lebanon with tears in their eyes and said they would never forget us. They didn’t feel lonely here.” Surely that is incentive enough.
 

This summer, Lebanon is riding on a wave of inbound tourism that is, by local standards, monumental. For the first time in recent memory, the month of June saw more than 100,000 arriving visitors. In relation to June 2003, the upward jump amounted to 37.43 % from 97,273 to 133,678 visitors, translating into a 26.4% share of the total 506,367 arrivals recorded for the first half of 2004. And while this increase was by far the largest year-on-year tourism growth for the month of June in a long time, the even better news is that growth rates in other months of this year were more flabbergasting still. In the first half-year of 2004, three out of six months recorded higher percentage wise increases than June: April (106.81%), March (77.16%), May (46.35%), plus January (35.34%) following not far behind.

For the industry, this means a double positive evolution of increasing and more balanced business as the summertime bulge in inbound tourism is becoming less extreme. “The figures for 2004 show a flattening of the curve between high and low seasons. The rise in tourism figures is consistent and very good for the country,” Nada Sardouk, general director at the ministry of tourism, told EXECUTIVE. In line with the good performance of the first six months, she confirmed that the ministry anticipates a total visitor count topping 1.3 million for this year.

The ministry’s optimism reverberates on the ground. From Bhamdoun to Broumana, the summer resort towns above Beirut saw business shift from zero to vibrant several weeks earlier than last year. The up market hotels that are the usual suspects for doing top business in Beirut confirm that occupancy has approached 100% since the beginning of July. And while Saudi Arabia’s new ambassador to Lebanon estimated in a welcomed message that more than 200,000 of the kingdom’s citizens (and coveted spenders) would vacation in Lebanon this year, arrivals of holidaymakers coming from outside the region also show new promise.

According to industry insiders, regional arrivals improved during the phase of changed travel patterns triggered by September 11 but many European tourists stayed away in 2002 and 2003. From this spring, however, the numbers of cultural tourists from Europe increased healthily and also started to include more people of younger age, where in previous years the “junior” in a tour group would often be 65.

Compared to previous years, while visitor numbers of one million per year marked a 2003 watershed and a 1974 visitor count of 1.48 million has again and again been quoted as the benchmark and the number to beat, the summer of 04 thus looks great. It seems a very fitting moment to pause and take stock of the larger potential, the up- and downsides of tourism for Lebanon, through an assessment of its macro-economic role and relevant public and private sector strategies.

On a worldwide scale, tourism is the fastest growing economic sector in two crucial respects: job creation and foreign exchange earnings, according to the World Tourism Organization (WTO), an agency of the United Nations. But although journeying has been called a human compulsion and universal drive since the first members of the human race embarked on migrations across deserts, oceans and mountain ranges, the career of tourism as a significant component in national economies has been more recent than the ascendancy of activities such as manufacturing, trade, finance, and transportation.

Tourism as a modern activity (in its definition as ‘travel for leisure,’ the term has been used officially for less than 80 years) has changed greatly from its beginnings as an elite pastime of wealthy young Britons who from the 18th century onward roamed Mediterranean destinations to escape their dreadful native climate and cuisine, and who greatly enlarged their cultural knowledge and art collections in the process. This elite phenomenon was the prototype of today’s cultural and leisure tourism and also soon came to include health tourism.

Tourism became less the preserve of the elite in the mid to late 19th century through organized mass travel but it really invigorated the economic equation of tourism in the second half of the 20th century. It brought the expansion of leisure journeys into a service used heavily by average income earners in industrial countries.

From a Lebanese perspective, it must appear sadly ironic that the year 1975 – when visitor numbers here came crashing down – is used as the international reference point for the sector’s rise to a new level and the unfolding of massive growth as worldwide tourist numbers broke the barrier of 200 million persons. From 1975 until 2000, this number of tourists tripled and for the coming 15 years, the WTO (which held its first general assembly as an UNDP agency in 1975) estimates another increase to 1.56 billion international tourist arrivals worldwide in 2020. Published in a report titled, Tourism2020 Vision, just before the turn of the millennium, the WTO prognoses calculated global tourism growth at 4.1% annually between 1995 and 2020 based on input from national tourism authorities and global industry leaders. The WTO’s regional forecast for the Middle East presents an even substantially higher outlook of 7.1% annual growth to reach 68.5 million tourist arrivals in 2020. Under this prediction, the Middle East’s share of international tourist arrivals would double over the study’s 25-year period from 2.2% in 1995 to 4.4% of the world total in 2020. However, a new WTO series of short-term assessments of sector developments, called the World Tourism Barometer, showed in its latest edition published in June that the Middle East achieved 30.4 million international tourist arrivals in 2003 (an increase of 10.3% from 2002), already representing a 4.4% share of the world’s 694 million tourist travels. According the findings of the report, Lebanon’s recent tourism boom is fully congruent with developments in the region and beyond. And assuming a 7.1% annual growth rate for the Middle East from this base figure, the region’s intake in tourism by 2020 could even be significantly higher than forecast in Tourism2020 Vision

The importance of tourism in global economic development in general, and the Middle East in particular, is clearly not in question. What requires examination in the macro-economic context, are the potential and strategies for Lebanese tourism relative to competing destinations and global trends on the one hand and the requirements to optimally manage tourism growth on the other hand.

Under the theme of managing tourism in global development, countries and international institutions are increasingly reviewing the link of tourism to economic, social and environmental development. A study undertaken for the World Bank concluded last year that the organization should cover the “operating environment of tourism” more strongly in its projects and country assistance strategies while carefully assessing the benefits of tourism for sustainable development. In all three respects of economic, social and environmental development, tourism growth has been shown to offer substantive benefits to national economies, but also brings with it risks and potential disadvantages.

In economic development, employment growth, increased foreign exchange earnings and heightened Foreign Direct Investment attractiveness are juxtaposed with increased infrastructure costs, inflationary pressures and the possibility of substantial outflows, or leakage, of tourism-related revenue from the economy. In its social and environmental impacts, badly managed tourism can also harm a nation’s living quality by factors such as limiting parts of the population in their access to water and energy, pushing real incomes lower, over-exploiting nature and degrading historic cultural assets.

For middle and low-income countries in the developing world, the contribution of tourism to GDP often assumes an over-proportional importance. Extreme dependency on tourism is a risk especially for small nations with marginal productivity, examples being exotic vacation islands such as the Maldives, Antigua or the Seychelles.

Whilst the country is still in the process of formulating its sustainability agenda for tourism development, Lebanon’s ministry of tourism today assumes an outlook of rapid growth in tourism of 20% and more per annum for at least the next six years. As director general Sardouk confirmed, the ministry’s best-case expectation is for 4 million tourist arrivals in 2010. This is much higher than the paltry 1.71 million tourists, which the WTO projected Lebanon to attract in that year.

Such a performance would also propel the contribution of tourism to the GDP – estimated to range at present between 8% and 10% – to levels for which the ministry today has no projections. Considering that Lebanon is part not only of the Middle East but also located in the world’s number one tourism region, the Mediterranean – which represents an expected slice of 345 million tourists in the global 2020 leisure travel cake – such an aspiration seems entirely reasonable. This is if it also makes responsible tourism development a crucial item on every private and public sector to-do-list.

Tour operators report a 50% improvement in bookings over 2003; the streets of Bhamdoun are rocking; guides are having the best summer in three years and their busy season increased to six months…. But Lebanon wants more tourism. EXECUTIVE details how the country can get more by taking a look at tourism niches and sub-niches that have development potential or even untapped capacities.

Healing the body

Health-related travel is an international tourism market niche to which local experts attribute enormous inbound potential. A broad coalition from the public and private sectors has begun efforts to unleash this potential by cultivating a sub-specialization of health tourism, called medical tourism, and the first results are coming in.

In June, Lebanon’s National Council for Health Tourism (NCHT) counted 40 to 50 patient arrivals here from regional countries, marking the beginning of what is hoped to become a huge activity for Lebanese hospitals, doctors and hospitality providers. “Every year, Arabs spend over $3 billion on health treatment. We have a stock of excellent doctors who studied in 58 countries. That is why we can claim to be an alternative source to developed countries in provision of health services. We have accreditation of a standard that no other Arab country comes even close to,” boasted Khalil Malaeb, general manager of K&M International Health Tourism.

His company received a commission by the NCHT – an entity formed under participation of five government ministries and five private sector syndicates – to organize and market Lebanon’s health tourism project worldwide. Work on the project started one-and-a-half years ago with measures to set up the infrastructure of local networks and international agreements, Malaeb said, and once the system is rolling, local providers should expect clients to come “by the thousands.”

The elements that make Lebanon an attractive destination for medical tourism in the region and possibly beyond are a superb price-cost ratio offered by clinics and practitioners here and 140 years of excellence in the field, Malaeb claimed. In developing the potential NCHT does not rely on approaching individual patients but tries to establish a systemic supply through agreements with governments and insurance companies in partner countries and through alliances between hospitals.

According to Malaeb, first operational accords were established earlier this year with Kuwait and Dubai, and government-to-government agreements with three countries in the Gulf and North Africa are currently in the process of being completed.

By NCHT expectations, most patients coming to Lebanon, often accompanied by family members, would stay anywhere between several days and a few weeks to undergo operations for a range of internal ailments of heart, liver and other organs. However, first arrivals already also included patients seeking longer treatment for cancer and degenerative diseases.

A second very significant client group presenting strong revenue potential for local surgeons are persons signing up for plastic surgery. With costs starting around $1,500 and the duration of the procedure taking a maximum of one week, including all medical follow-up, plastic surgery has become a preoccupation for vastly growing numbers of women and men from around the region, and Lebanon has already gained a reputation as a center for such treatment.

If the formula for medical tourism becomes as successful as expected and hospitals fill up with patients whose treatment costs are paid (upfront) by their foreign healthcare providers, it would constitute a healthy inflow of revenue – for which no projections are available – and also lead to a follow-up creation of rehabilitation clinics, convalescence homes, and purpose-built accommodations for family members in the vicinity of major hospitals. For the moment, the network employs existing hotel facilities to serve clients, offering numerous options on cost and class of treatment and hotel stay.

The beach

In core qualities, the new prime-grade Lebanese beaches should have no trouble competing with many of the top destinations. Whether at an undeveloped beach in the south, or at any of the leading new resorts in Rmeileh, Jiyeh, Damour, and Byblos, one sees a different and distinct beauty confirming the country’s age-old spell as a land of splendor.

Cleanliness has been a problem on Lebanon’s coast, both due to absence of wastewater treatment facilities and because of prevalent picnickers and beach revelers who don’t remove their own trash. But with the emergence of carefully managed new seaside fun spots over the past four years, private sector operators have shaped stretches of noticeably clean resort environments. As the beach resort business is expanding, it hopefully will bring continued impetus in the creation of environmentally responsible recreation sites and push municipalities and national authorities towards more effective action in remedying the deplorable state of handling liquid and solid wastes.

Competition pressures among resorts seem to have thus far stood against the establishment of a dedicated association or syndicate and defining of joint standards by operators. But one only needs to compare the diverse features of, for instance, Oceana in Damour and the Edde Sands Resort in Byblos to be immediately convinced that the offerings of classy places complement one another, and the more originality and variety in style they provide, the better.

The establishment of sophisticated and affordable beach resorts that are able to comfortably accommodate capacity crowds is still a relatively young development. Thus, the new leisure attractions operate under challenges to achieve returns on their investments ranging from $1.5 to $10 million, satisfy their mainstay local customers and raise the image of a Lebanese beach vacation among European holidaymakers, who account for the vast majority of international tourists on Mediterranean beaches.

All is not eco

In the worldwide growth sector of eco tourism, Lebanon recently claimed to have many chances, reaching from participation in reforestation and environmental projects to adventure travel and agritourism. However, the sector is not really in gear. “I am afraid to have to say that the sector is very weak. We don’t have a profile of eco tourists coming to Lebanon from abroad,” said Pascal Abdallah, general manager of Cyclamen, one of seven local companies specialized in the sector.

What these companies currently can produce, accounts for far below 5% of the entire tourism turnover in Lebanon, he told EXECUTIVE, and companies cannot offer eco-tourism in the real sense, which relies on experiencing nature non-intrusively. “We do not yet have a national policy on eco-tourism. We are restrained to providing responsible nature tourism,” he said.

What are promoted mostly in the still very small sub-sector are sports and adventure tourism trips. Many of the recent providers of these programs are enterprises evolved from informal beginnings in hiking clubs and youth organizations. The issue of eco tourism is viewed as very important at the ministry of tourism. This notwithstanding, no formal department for eco tourism has been instituted and the issue of nurturing eco tourism is handled by members of the ministry “as a hobby.”

Agritourism projects have been proven viable by academic research but are still small or even merely conceptual, with wine tourism as the specialization seen as having the best potential to become a niche attraction for tourists. Lebanon did hope to claim a modest spot in this lucrative sector (Australia wine tourism brings in $500 million to rural Australia annually, with a near 100% increase in the number of tourists since 1991). However, this initiative has stuttered in recent years. In 2001 UVL put together a formal itinerary for wine tasting tours called Le Route du Vin, but the post 9/11 drought of Western tourists virtually stymied the plan at birth.

Globally, the typical wine tourist falls into three categories: aged 40 to 60, childless couples or those with a higher than average education and income. This is a growing demographic group and one that would appreciate Lebanon’s other cultural attractions. Apart from the vacationing expatriates, the wine growers had counted on these enlightened 40-somethings, mainly from the UK and Germany, to make the journey to the Bekaa wineries.

Currently, only Kefraya, Ksara (which receives 40,000 visitors a year) Massaya, Clos St. Thomas and Clos De Qana offer genuine hospitality services. Cave Koroum is putting the finishing touches to a not insignificant wine resort in the village of Kefraya. The winery is arguably the biggest in the Middle East and has a restaurant, tasting room and hotel to match.

Massaya, a younger but forward thinking winery, has introduced weekend buffet lunches and last year held blues and jazz concerts in the vineyards. This summer, the winery expects to receive nearly 10,000 visitors and has added more concert dates. Others have taken the lead: Clos St Thomas in Qab Elias holds regular lunches and star watching evenings.

Gaming, shopping, and festivals

Lebanon is always a good place to leave money, and there’s nowhere easier to do that than the Casino du Liban. From 1959 until deep into the civil war, it achieved a legendary career as place where the rich, famous and reckless gambled their fortunes. Show designers from Las Vegas are said to have come to Maamaltain in the casino’s heydays to pick up entertainment ideas.

Today, the casino again is a fixture of the region’s entertainment scene as the Middle East’s largest gaming establishment. Night after night, its silhouette outlined with brightly flashing stroboscopic lights dominates Jounieh Bay and the pulling power of its gaming rooms and the new risqué “Lipstick” show often turns the shoulder of the Byblos-Beirut freeway into a parking lot.

According to a Casino du Liban spokesperson, the establishment has been increasing its advertising and promotion activities in Arab countries in recent years, and regional visitor flows are growing steadily. How big is this niche exactly? Until comprehensive surveys of visitor behavior are conducted in Lebanon, it will remain unclear just how many of our 438,203 Arab visitors from 2003 found their way into the gaming areas and how many of the roughly 130,000 hotel guests from the Gulf region flew to Beirut specifically and solely for a casino vacation.

What is certain is that the casino patrons are esteemed spenders. The casino’s auditors have held back on releasing the establishment’s books over the last three years, due to unresolved tax disputes. But with pre-tax dividends of $50 on each $145 share (OTC) for 2003 and fiscal participation of 30% in the casino’s annual turnover of an estimated $88 million, investors and fiscal coffers, and to a smaller degree the national economy, clearly enjoy a profitable inbound tourism niche here. Retail shopping was historically embedded in Lebanon’s function as the Middle East’s trading post, back when people from the entire region came to Beirut to shop for goods ranging from abayas to household furnishings.

However, attempts in the mid 90s to run month-long Lebanon Shopping Festivals failed to re-establish Beirut as a retail tourism destination in direct competition to Saudi Arabia’s shopping mall culture and Dubai’s mega sales spectacles. Today, summer sales periods in Lebanon have become successful in attracting regional guests, and for visitors from Levant countries, the wide choices in retail commerce continue to make Beirut a real shopping destination.

Tourist preferences in retail purchases and the share of these expenditures in their overall spending can only be estimated, demonstrating the need for more detailed research into consumer groups and behavior. “They spend a lot on food, a lot on clothing and ladies leave much money at the beauty salons,” said the PR manager of a major Beirut resort hotel with many Gulf customers. However, her colleague at another top house with a large GCC clientele responded that the city is not seen as a major shopping destination by guests in the hotel.

Statistics on Value-Added-Tax refunds still provide the best indicators that are available on the role of retail in inbound tourism. After the program was instituted in 2002, VAT-refunds were reimbursed to visitors to the tune of over $1 million over 12 months. Respective purchases by tourists in the range of $10 million to $20 million in one year would hardly make for a national retail salvation. However, concentration of refunds in certain item categories – 62% of refunds were on clothes and 12% on jewelry/watches – and large shares of foreign-bound sales at some retail outlets suggest that Lebanon’s retail sector has destination potential in a few micro-niches.

While they may not qualify as a destination that people travel 2,000 kilometers to visit, specialized up market clothing retailers Aïshti are an example of an enterprise that attributes a massive share of its sales to non-residents. With the incentive of VAT tax refunds, the retail streets of Beirut’s Hamra and Verdun districts could in the past two years again count on tourism as income boosters during the summer and religious holiday seasons. Large retail projects under development around the capital also count on Arab visitors in their feasibility predictions, and the ABC shopping mall in Ashrafieh in its first summer season is visibly successful in drawing in Arab visitors who otherwise seldom found their way to the quarter’s retail scene.

Like gaming and shopping, music festivals have long been well-known fixtures of Lebanon’s tourism infrastructure. The Baalbeck Festival contributed to establishing the country’s international profile since its renewal in the late 90s, thanks to coverage of festival events by foreign media, festival committee member Leila Bissat told EXECUTIVE, but she agreed that “the Lebanese and expatriates” traditionally comprised the main clientele.

This could change. Numbers of cultural festivals are mushrooming, with locations from Aanjar to Zouk Mikhael adding their profiles to the list of summer entertainment. The majority of these festivals are seen as value-added to the community and perhaps domestic attractions, but some virginal events, such as the Beirut Jazz Festival held last month for the first time, are aiming to make it onto international event calendars.

With the impressive portfolio of cultural backgrounds and settings of Lebanon, festivals have the potential to reach more international fans. At Baalbeck, special performances by world famous artists such as Placido Domingo this summer proved suitable to attract tourists from Jordan, Syria and other Arab countries, Bissat said. And like other festivals, the Baalbeck planners are looking at cruise ships stopping over at Beirut Port for opportunities to organize excursions to festival events.

Some events even aspire to stardom. “This is our first year, in which we want to build the legend of the festival,” said Roland Barbar, the conceptual director of the Byblos Festival. After the festival changed its format into a composition of ticketed performances and a series of free concerts in the consecutive off-Byblos event, he is confident that the annual spectacle will make it to the world agenda within the next three years. The festival, with 24,000 sold tickets in 2003, is certainly on course to achieve financial feasibility.

It would be stretching things to assume that the Byblos Festival and its peers in the assembly of Lebanese summer events could aggregate into a cultural and fun profile that let the country acquire stature akin to the model of global leaders, like the Edinburgh Festival. But by the quality of settings and the enthusiasm of the growing fan base, good music and great moods, festival packages here seem disposed well enough to become the region’s hub and the bridge of cultures between Europe and the Arab world.

The city of Byblos is one of five UNESCO world heritage sites in Lebanon. Its tourism potential is tremendous but much of it has lain dormant. Roger Edde, business tycoon and developer with international experience in Europe and the United States, is a member of an old influential family here. After establishing a beach resort near Byblos in 2003, he has the ambition to turn city and area into a magnificent tourism destination with plenty of new features. To EXECUTIVE, Edde revealed details of his plans.

You are stepping forward with a new and highly ambitious plan for a real estate development in the Byblos area. Why are you proposing such a large project today?

I feel the tourism industry and tourism related real estate in Lebanon are two years ahead of a moving curve, which will move up substantially in the 15 years that follow. I also applied the principle of supply side economics in real estate. Dubai has proven that supply side economics in the construction of real estate in the worst of conditions can be successful. In Lebanon, we are not in the worst of conditions. We may be in one of the most interesting conditions.

What do you intend to develop in the Byblos area?

I was responding to a demand showing on the map of the growth of tourism. By aiming at creating a destination in Byblos I want to emphasize the cultural aspect because I believe in cultural tourism. I want to enrich that concept with what is already trendy worldwide: green villages, where people can feel that they have the quality of life that they dream to have during the years living in hard times in the big cities. I wanted to address also another growing business by developing an area with a large port that will be a port for leisure boats, plus a terminal for cruise liners.

How much land did you own prior to starting things and how much did you acquire additionally?

I had the vision already before, which meant I acquired a lot of land. We are talking about more than three million square meters and I have acquired a third of that recently.

Are the three million square meters continuous or distributed over the entire area?

We are talking about a stretch from the Byblos seaside to the Byblos snow side, the area of Laqlouq, the cedars of Tannourine, the cedars of Jaj and above. I already own 1.6 million square meters in Laqlouq, including a river. That will be the cornerstone for the Laqlouq, Tannourine, Aaqoura, and cedars of Jaj development where we could even promote religious tourism and pilgrimages. I won’t go and invest right now, before the road is done, because I know what not to do.

What do you want to establish on the seaside?

My tendency is to rely on private enterprise and I am not scared of dreaming of the impossible because I don‘t think there is anything impossible. Before starting anything, we had a top urban planner conceive a development for seven kilometers around Edde Sands. We centered the space on the port of Byblos and the volumes that go from the port.

Are you talking about expanding the old port?

No, the old port is small and medieval and cannot be touched. The city of Byblos and the Lebanese government and the UNESCO have already approved the idea of a port in a place called Ras Edde. I have already large amounts of land there. If we wait for the government, we can forget about it.

Building a port would cost how much?

It would be $270 to $350 million, minimum, for the pure port facilities not counting real estate. The cruise line terminal needs more than that because I would also like Byblos to become a place of support facilities and maintenance for the cruise liners.

How much will the entire development cost?

My calculation is now that we will rapidly reach a $2 billion investment, not only land buying but real investment, because we are talking a city development around a very large port facility. At a certain point I will start to accept investors. I have already demand from international pension funds, Arab and Lebanese investors to join in.

So your final vision is an investment volume of $2 billion in developing three million square meters of land?

No, I am talking about Byblos taking the $2 billion, in a triangle between Edde Sands, Amcheet and [the village of] Edde. That would be all connected with tennis camps, sports theme park centers, and a wellness area with clinics offering exams of the quality you can get in the Mayo Clinic.

Then you are focusing on health tourism?

Health tourism and sports tourism, but all in a leisure environment. In some places, you want to be quiet, discreet, in a wooded area out of sight, receive your spiritual treatment. We are already starting an experience of that in Edde Sands with spiritual treatment, for which we have been waiting a lot. At this stage, what we are doing is creating the brand and reputation and testing the ground. We will move when we have enough evaluation of demand.

So going to a next stage would depend on profitability?

It is not profitability. Next stages are planned and would go immediately. I don’t think we would have a problem to fill a large port. In fact, when I would do the port I would probably already have sold most of the space of the port.

How much did you invest in Edde Sands if we take this resort as the seed of the vision?

I am over the $10 million mark, not talking about the real estate but what has been invested into the real estate.

And you have calculated $100 million for a hotel in the next expansion phase?

This is correct for the first stage of the hotel. I think we may go up to $150 million, especially if we are doing a project consisting to a part of a hotel and to a part of a serviced hotel.

How much did land value of your properties increase since you started investing into this dream?

From a real estate point of view, not from a return point of view, every penny I have spent on that land has increased three to five times in value. Plus, I can price anything built on the land today at the same pricing in Solidere or any prime location in Beirut. That is also very important. You are 33km from Beirut but you did something of a real quality in a very unique spot, you can price absolutely at the same level as any prime location in Beirut.

Is it true that you have recently also undertaken other investments?

We have moved into the old city of Byblos. We are buying boutiques in the old souk and in fact collected more than 20 boutiques in the old souk. Prices have already multiplied three to five times; but when I have an offer, I take it. We are defining the market. Only two weeks ago, we hired two high-quality persons and asked them to establish their high quality fresh cuisine into the souks of Byblos. It is a sudden success.

How long until you fill the triangle with $2 billion worth of investment?

I think it will take at least seven years.

How do you respond to people who say that Mr. Edde only developed this project because he owns a lot of land and wanted to increase its value?

That is my right but it is not my reason. In fact, wherever I am starting a project I am buying land at a higher price. I am not a seller of land. Others say Roger Edde is doing politics the other way. That’s true. I cannot afford under the present political conditions to do politics. I don’t like to do politics under the Lebanese conditions as they are today. It is my way to do politics and have people understand that doing things for yourself and for others can be profitable for yourself and for others.

You are engaged in development of the Byblos area to a scale that seems to amount to private town planning. Isn’t there a contradiction?

No, it is not a contradiction. I am doing it privately and at the same time, this is putting a lot of pressure on the public authorities to respect what I am doing and emulate it.

Lebanon has a tradition of feudalism. Is this past of the ZAIM being carried over into the role of private public developer?

I have been born into a family, which has been the ZUAMA of the area historically. I made a real effort not to deal with the area as a fiefdom. I want my area and Lebanon to move out of this mentality. It is an ideological thing for me. I have written about this and I went from village to village to sell my ideas of democratic liberty, political liberty and economic liberty.

What if the public sector might someday say we don’t like this private man to be that powerful?

Then I will go back and run for president.

The less state there is the more responsibility rests on the shoulders of the developer. But could you as developer not take the view that your role is just to build and sell and afterwards pursue other projects?

I can’t do that, for the very simple reason that I chose to live here to give a chance to a place outside of Beirut, which is close to my heart where our name has been associated with historically. The choice of Byblos as a destination for me is a responsibility and also a sentimental choice. There is nothing wrong with that. To worry about the quality of architecture, worry about the quality of the green space, of the sand and the water, investing heavily into a place which honestly was a dump and turn it into a place that many people call heaven, this is a challenge that is part of a responsibility. The project is not a commercial one to me; I would never sell it.

A proud tradition

Lebanon’s adult entertainment industry/sex trade is worth an estimated $140 million (although this figure could be much higher), and employs over 4,000 people. Lebanon has always worn a patina of sin, one that represents a not insignificant portion (7%) of the tourist industry, around even though the ministry might prefer to focus on Lebanon’s more family-oriented attractions. Though hardly transparent, the market can be characterized as highly diversified, as it encompasses everything from the Super Nightclubs of Maameltein, with their bevies of Eastern European hostesses, the new wave of massage parlors (or anti-stress clinics), and the red light bars for the less well-heeled customers. There is also a thriving local and regional market for Lebanese “escorts,” and models. And then there are, of course the freelancers, the women (and men) who work the hotels, cafés and sidewalks, practicing the oldest profession in the world.

The law

Contrary to what most people think, prostitution is not illegal in Lebanon, in the sense that it is not included in the penal code. Only the act to facilitate or encourage prostitution is penalized. Prostitution is regulated under a 1931 law related to the “preservation of public health,” which stipulates that prostitution must take place in a “public house” or “meeting house,” both of which must be run by women over 25-years-old in accordance with the rules of the particular neighborhood. Other regulations stipulate that prostitutes should be at least 21 years of age, be subject to a medical exam twice a week (the fees of which are to be paid by the municipality) and that policemen can make spot checks whenever necessary. In other words, most prostitution in Lebanon is illegal, simply because it’s not done by the book.

Super nightclubs also fall under the law, as they need permits to serve alcohol and (according to a 1947 ruling) stage “non-cinematic” shows, i.e., cabarets. Finally, a 1929 government ruling controls the daily comings and goings of foreign “artists” employed to dance in bars and nightclubs.

These so called artists need a permit issued by the Surete Generale. The text stipulates that the person in question needs to submit “a certificate of previous work or be a member of a known artistic organization.” In case the artist does not fulfill these conditions, the Surete Generale can still authorize her to work “if investigations show the artist is good and qualified.” It is also worth noting that “exciting” dancing and dancing in indecent clothes are also prohibited. The text also regulates entry and stay in Lebanon. Policy today is that “artists” who enter the country as dancers can only stay for six months.

Super Nightclubs

The biggest money-spinners in the adult entertainment sector are the Super Nightclubs, which account for nearly $100 million annually. (For a popular operation, business can be lucrative. Overheads – rent, electricity, salaries, permits, “unofficial payments” etc. – account for 40% of revenues and, given the nature of the business, the finance ministry will find it hard to get a clear picture of monies earned.) There are an estimated 80 genuine super nightclubs in Lebanon, some 40 of which, including the most upscale ones, are historically located in the Jounieh neighborhood of Maameltein. The rest are dotted around Hamra, Ain Mreisseh, Tabarja, Mansourieh, Hazmieh and the mountain resort of Aley. The number of girls employed per club varies from five to 30, but the top clubs such as the famous Excalibur, which can employ up to 40 hostesses, have more. In theory, all so-called super nightclubs offer cabarets, but in reality only in the bigger ones are shows performed, mainly by girls from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Show or no show, the main business is about spending time with the girls. The deal generally is that if you spend $60 to $100 on drinks, the girl of your choice will keep you company for around 90 minutes. The easiest option is to buy her a bottle of Champagne, but Whiskey will suffice. Your own drinks at $10 each come on top of that.

For men visiting a super nightclub with the idea it being a brothel, the experience can be rather disappointing. In principle, customers are not permitted to leave with a girl and girls are not allowed to offer sexual favors. The clubs are not bordellos and are subject to regular spot checks by undercover policemen or Surete Generale officers. However, if the customer spends the minimum $60 to $100, the customer is entitled to ask the girl “out” the next day between 1pm and 7pm. (The Surete Generale, which regulates the entry and stay of the girls in Lebanon, demands that the girls are to be in their hotel by 5am. They are not allowed to leave before 1pm and have to be back in the club by 8pm, hence the specific window of opportunity).

This does not mean that she will consent to sex. While some will (the rate is roughly $100), others will merely go for a walk or have a meal. In rare cases, clients can take a girl home the same night, but this is risky and restricted to long-term customers and both club owner and girl must agree. The fee is usually $300, $50 of which goes to the girl. The rest is divided between the owner (for loss of business), and the hotel owner, who must pay off the policeman who checks the hotel in the morning.

From Russia with love

For a foreign worker (they are mostly Russian) to find employment in the Lebanese super nightclub circuit, she must first sign up with an agency (most are in Moscow). A successful applicant’s contract will not stipulate the entire range of what is expected of her once she starts working in her new country of employment, but most arrive with their eyes open. (see Global Trade)

The Lebanese club owner pays a fee of about $150 per girl to the agency and must buy the girl a return ticket of some $800 and pay her an average salary of some $300 a month plus commission (based on her ability to sell bottles of champagne). Girls working in the top clubs however can earn salaries of $600 and even a $1,000. The employer pays some $400 for a permit and medical tests, as well as some $350 for medical insurance. Girls share a room in a hotel. Most club owners will pay for the cost of accommodations, which is roughly $300 a month per girl. Cases have been reported however, in which the hotel fee was deducted from the girl’s basic salary. Total cost to the employer per girl for her six-month stint in his employ is some $5,300.

Massage Parlors

Found throughout the Greater Beirut area, massage parlors, or anti-stress centers, as they are euphemistically known, are technically legal and generate as a “sector” over $20 million per year. Generally clean and well-run, these operations employ some six to 12 mainly Lebanese or Filipino girls, who will give a regular 40-minute massage before offering the extra service. The massage usually costs $20, which goes to the house, while any extras, usually another $20 to $30, is kept by the masseuse, who will often cater to around seven customers per day. A few years ago a string of parlors was raided by police and closed down. Today this “problem” has been resolved and many of the best businesses openly advertise in the local press.

Girlie bars

This cottage industry, the closest you will get to a traditional brothel in Lebanon, generates revenues of roughly $6 million per year. There are about two-dozen in Hamra and Ain Mnreiseh alone, recognizable by the universal red light outside their door. The price of a drink is about the same as in your average club on Monot Street, but there all similarity ends. The madam will waste no time in asking you right away if you want to take one of the three or four (often mature) ladies employed in the bar to a quiet place upstairs or behind the bar. The police are paid off at a local level and the cost of full sex is about $50.

Call girls

The top end of the “adult entertainment” market is dominated by the fearsomely popular Lebanese call girls, who ply their trade in the hotels of Beirut and the Gulf countries. Many of the less ambitious operators advertise in the local press as dancers seeking employment or women looking for a marriage partner, but for the high-net worth clients, the local model agencies and pages of the glamour magazines (showing contestants at bikini contests etc.) are their tele-shopping heaven. In these cases, the agency will arrange a contact and take a cut. In this sense, their activities are indistinguishable from regular pimping. The girls, often aspiring singers or models, can earn up to several thousand dollars a night, more if they are requested (and agree) to travel on one of the regular weekend party charter flights between Beirut, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.

The Freelancers

At the budget end of the market are those women who ply their trade at the street level. Still, they are a solid component of the industry and contribute around $4 million to the sector. They are generally Lebanese, Syrian or African and offer their wares mainly on Raouche and the Jounieh Highway, but they can be found all over Lebanon. They charge between $25 and $50.

Many women (and men) work out of cafés, especially in the BCD, and in collaboration with a waiter who acts as a middleman between the professional and the potential client. She will charge anything between $100 and $500. Given the nature of their work, it’s difficult to estimate how many women are on the game, but it is assumed the number is in the high hundreds.

Lebanon and the Lebanese: part of a global game

Early last month, former British model David Barnett, was sentenced to four years in jail for running a jet set prostitution racket of 40 men and women for rich Lebanese and Saudi businessmen, including members of the Royal family. Barnett was sentenced to four years in prison. Among his four accomplices was 31-year-old Lebanese Wissam Nashef, who helped Barnett to find prostitutes. Nashef was sentenced to three months in jail and had to pay a 3000 euro fine. During the trial Nashef admitted to having pimped for wealthy clients from Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. The global trade in women to work in the sex industry is estimated to be worth between $7 and $12 billion. Since the fall of the Berlin wall, Russia and Eastern Europe have taken over the role dominated by the Asians in the 1980s. An estimated 500,000 Russian girls, or “Natashas,” are working in the global sex industry today, as well as some 100,000 Ukranians and up to 100,000 Moldavians. An estimated 1,500 of them reside in Lebanon.

Keeping up with the neighbors

In Israel the situation is somewhat different. It’s estimated that every year some 3,000 women are smuggled into the country by the Russian mafia and sold for $3,000 to $6,000 each. According to a local media investigation, these unfortunate women work up to 12 hours a day, serving 10 to 15 clients for an average of some $30 a customer, of which the pimp takes up to 90%. In July 2001, the US State Department placed Israel on the black list of countries that do not meet the criteria for dealing with sex crimes.