[Source]
If you are wondering why tourists are no longer coming to Beirut, that’s one way to explain it.
In a recent ranking on the quality of living, Lebanon’s capital Beirut, formerly known as the “Paris of the Middle East,” ranked 171st worldwide and 16th in the MENA region. The annual survey of the quality of living in 221 cities by global consultants Mercer looked at cities from a standpoint of overall desirability.
Within the MENA region, Dubai kept its ranking as the best city for overall quality of living.
“Beirut is 98 spots behind the top-ranked Arab city. It is also 47 spots behind Amman and 30 spots behind Cairo, for example. This shows the work that needs to be done to improve the quality of living here,” Ghobril told The Daily Star. “It is simply not acceptable that the quality of living in 13 Arab cities is better than that is Beirut.” [Link]
I don’t think quality of living has anything to do with why tourism is down. Cario is 30 spots ahead, but it’s not like tourism is booming there either.
The answer is usually much simpler than trying to dig through statistics. No one wants to visit a country that is right next door to a massive civil war, nor a country still dealing with in-fighting, with fights breaking out and people getting shot.
who cares?
we have the best nightlife scene, the biggest taboule, hommos and kebbe platter!
80% of society cares about looks, cars, car plate number, plastic surgery, arguile, shopping…
no one gives a damn (only a few )about culture, books, sports, eco-tourism, nature…
we don’t have proper electricity or internet, no public beaches,our “supposed to be” highway is filled with gas stations, car showrooms, malls, bakeries.. and we still wonder why there is traffic all the time!
most of our current politicians were war lords 20 years ago!
i will stop here
sorry for being negative, but i am not surprised at all that we ranked in the lowest position.
have a nice week 🙂
This is the best comments that I’ve ever read … 100% true Rachel.
We were lying on ourselves, and still, by advertising beirut as the Paris of the middle east and Lebanon as Switzerland of the ME.
We are egoist, racist, arrogant and we classify other people/nations by these terms.
Maybe if look a bit to ourselves, judge/blame ourselves before pointing at others, we can then find solutions to our problems…
nice one rachel and all people care about is ONLY making money no matter how, that’s y all this chaos and traffic is being created no rules no regulations
ta3a hdar a3j2it el sair in Dora w khaberneh 3an Lebanon!
one side has a huge accident the other well tar cha2fi min el jeser w msakar el sair as well!
You need a Spring for Leb by itself to oust the current politicians or else the quality of life is going to be worse ,keep voting for the old men
And same as in Egypt, Tunisia, and Lybia, the result will be us completely regretting that we ousted our current politicians as they were replaced by corrupt islamist US/Israeli puppets who are more repressive, money hungry, unscrupulous, and more dictator than the previous leaders(and of course they’ll claim they are a democracy). You can curse the current politicians all you want, the fact is they are (by comparison) are the best leaders you could hope for in this country.
It saddens me a lot. I’m speechless.