More than 6 billion dollars in revenue Lebanon in the summer of tourism, according to official estimates. But most of this money didn’t go into the banking sector; “Because of lack of trust,” economist Walid Bou Suleiman told Al Sharq.
The “Welcome to the Holiday” tourism campaign brought in $6.6 billion to the country during the 90-day period that stretched from early June to late August, following the arrival of about 1.6 million visitors to Lebanon.
About $2.5 billion came out of this money; And some $4.1 billion remained “in the orbit of the Lebanese economy,” according to interim tourism minister Walid Nassar, during his launch of the promotional campaign for winter tourism, which is estimated to attract 700,000 visitors, for the period from early December 2022 to mid-January 2023, which will be generated for the country, revenues of approximately 1.5 billion dollars.
Lebanon has suffered a financial meltdown over the past three years, as decades of mismanagement and corruption escalated into a simultaneous crisis: banks, international debt defaults and exchange rate collapse. The Lebanese economy has shrunk by 60% since popular protests erupted in October 2019, alongside banks’ refusal to give depositors their money in dollars. The lira has fallen by more than 95% from its official price, to recently trade between 38 and 40 thousand pounds per dollar on the black market.
IMF: Lebanon’s progress with agreed reforms is very slow
However, in October, Lebanon and Israel reached a historic agreement on the demarcation of their maritime borders in a gas-rich area in the Mediterranean, after months of diplomatic efforts with American mediation, which generated a glimmer of hope for the Lebanese regarding to an improvement in the economic situation, even if not in the short term.
