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Moving up, it just so happens, was on Forbes.com’s list of the World’s Most Dangerous Destinations.
We’re now in the top 10 worldwide!
I couldn’t believe it, wasn’t the summer of 2007 one of the good tourism seasons in Lebanon? Despite the recent Israeli-Lebanese war that caused massive infrastructure destruction, despite a long confrontation between the Lebanese army and the terrorist Fatah al Islam in North Lebanon, and lest we forget, there’s this ongoing dispute between the government and its allies and the opposition, one that caused downtown Beirut, one of the most vibrant tourism venues, to be paralyzed.
I guess we made it all look better, what with all the funky plastic surgery loans offered to the Lebanese by “respected” banking institutions.
In recent years, Lebanon’s made headlines for all the wrong reasons -including the above photo- and you’d have to assume tourism took a hit.
Here’s Forbes.com’s profile on dangerous Lebanon:
Control Risks: High security risk, and medium terrorism and travel risk.
With the country divided by pro- and anti-Syrian forces, Lebanon is struggling to manage political tensions. Assassinations of high-profile leaders and military battles with Israel in southern Lebanon have made this difficult. Unless stability is restored, Control Risks foresees more assassinations, civil unrest and armed conflict.
Again, “Unless stability is restored, Control Risks foresees more assassinations, civil unrest and armed conflict.”
Who knew Einstein & Sherlock worked for Forbes.com?
Here’s the strange part, sure tourism took a hit because of all the unrest, but I’d bet a whole lot that was strictly foreign tourism. ie.: Sven the Sweedish chef chose to go to the Maldives because Lebanon was just too risky, and asparagus was hard to come by in Lebanon at that time of the year.
But all the Lebanese immigrants across the world were unfazed and flocked to Lebanon’s summertime like they usually do.
Although 2007 was mostly a bad year in terms of tourism (and everything else really) in Lebanon, five star hotels had very high occupancy ratings.
The Daily Star reported back in December 29th, 2007: Tourism, one of the pillars of the economy, fell by more than 25 percent in the first 10 months, although it picked up quickly in the last two months of this year. Most five-star hotels in Beirut reported over 65 percent room occupancy on Christmas Eve.
Which tells us one thing, if we are going to die, we want to do it in a posh five star hotel, sipping Dom Perignon and chewing insanely expensive salted cashew nuts.
It makes things look better, just like a cosmetic surgery loan would.
Ali // 30LL.org
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