Will Aoun’s visit to SA bring back Saudi tourists?

Al Diyar newspaper of today wrote about the visit of the President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, to Saudi Arabia and questioned whether Saudi tourists and investors will return to Lebanon soon. The newspaper pointed out that Saudi Arabia held in 2010 first place in the list of countries whose nationals visited Lebanon, and who totaled some 200 thousand Saudi tourists out of grand total of one million and 500 thousand tourists. The Saudi's total touristic expenditure was close to $ 2 billion out of $5.7 billion total touristic expenditure. The newspaper continued by noting that the number of Saudi tourists fell in 2015 to 47 thousand tourists when Saudi Arabia ranked fourth in terms of the number of tourists who visit Lebanon following Iraq that holds the first place, Jordan and Egypt. In addition the touristic expenditure fell from $5.7 billion to $5.3 billion of which $500 million is from Saudi Arabia. The newspaper also emphasized the importance of Saudi tourists particularly and Gulf tourists more generally for Lebanon tourism industry, considering that their return to Lebanon in the near future is linked to several factors including:  1) Changing the psychological mindset of Saudi tourists who stayed away from Lebanon, and who now need reassurances. 2) Strengthening political, security stability, tax and legislative stability. 3) Improving the image of Lebanon which was recently tarnished by the garbage crisis. 4) Improving electricity provision and managing the intractable traffic jams. (Al Diyar January 13, 2017)