June 30 – Figures released by the Lebanese tourism ministry indicate that the sector’s activity has grown during the first five months of 2010 compared to the same period last year. The number of tourists visiting Lebanon saw an annual increase of 28.6 percent to reach 732,855 compared to 569,724 in 2009. This year-on-year progress sustains the significant rise in overall tourism activity throughout 2009 resulting from the stable political situation and the strong resilience of the Lebanese economy to the global financial crisis.
Moreover, the number of tourists in the first five months of 2010 reached a record high when compared to the same period of previous years as the country initiates what is expected to be a historical tourism season. The distribution of tourists by origin in the first five months of 2010 indicates that the majority of visitors were from Arab countries with 41 percent followed by Europe with 25 percent visitors. Asia had 19 percent of the total aggregate visitors, the Americas had 10 percent, Oceania were at 3 percent and visitors from Africa had 2 percent.
