BEIRUT: Lebanon’s hotel and restaurant sector is seeing a sharp drop in business this year due to the political standoff and unstable situation in some Arab states, the president of the Restaurant Owners Association Paul Aryss said Monday.
“The situation is extremely bad now. Our business turnover has dropped between 30 to 40 percent in Beirut and some parts of the country,” Aryss told The Daily Star. He added that 15 restaurants in Gemmayzeh and eight in Downtown have closed this year and more are expected to follow if the situation remains the same.
Some restaurants that remain open in Beirut have laid off most of their employees while others slashed the salaries of their waiters, chefs and other workers to cope with the fall in the number of customers.
Most of the restaurant owners do not have high hopes that the situation will eventually improve in the summer, or as long as the country remains without a government.
Aryss noted, however, that restaurants in Hamra are doing very well despite the fall in the number of tourists and Arab visitors.
“It a different ball game in Hamra because this area is densely populated and above all it has two important universities [American University of Beirut and the Lebanese American University] with more than 15,000 students,” he said.
Aryss stressed that the political turmoil in Syria has also taken its toll on the tourism sector. “Many Syrians, Iraqis and Arab tourists used to cross Syria to Lebanon and spend the summer in Beirut and the mountain. It is natural that we will be affected if the situation in Syria deteriorates.”
He added that many restaurant owners opened franchises in some Arab countries to maintain good revenues.
“But not all these franchises are doing well in countries like Bahrain, Egypt and Dubai. The only exception is Qatar and Sharm al Shiekh,” Aryss said.
Asked if restaurant owners have another option to cope with the situation, Aryss said: “We don’t have plan A or B. Our only salvation is to see a new Cabinet in Lebanon. Tourists will not be too eager to spend the summer here if politicians keep bickering on who should be in the Cabinet.”
The Tourism Ministry has confirmed that the situation in Lebanon has caused a drop in the number of visitors to the country.
According to the figures release by the ministry, the number of tourists visiting Lebanon dropped by 15.5 percent during the first four months of this year to 475,534, versus 562,623 during the same period last year, due to domestic political tensions and to the regional turmoil.
In the fourth month of the year, the number of tourists reached 134,864, down by 20.4 percent relative to the same month of the previous year.
It also registered a drop of 0.6 percent relative to March 2011.
The distribution of tourists by origin in the first four months of 2011 indicates that the majority of visitors were from Arab countries (32.6 percent of total visitors) followed by visitors from Europe (28.5 percent), visitors from Asia (22.8 percent), visitors from the Americas (10.2 percent), visitors from Africa (3.2 percent) and visitors from Oceania (2.6 percent).
Hotel occupancy in Beirut also saw a drop of 22 percent in the first four months of this year.
Most hotels in the capital have less than 50 percent room occupancy and the picture is even worse in hotels in Mount Lebanon.
As in the case of restaurant owners, hotel managers warn that they may be compelled to lay off some of their employees if the occupancy ratios remain below the 50 percent ceiling this summer.