Lebanon Faces Another Bad Summer Season

A man sits in a nearly empty street cafe in Beirut's Hamra district, Lebanon Friday, June 8, 2007. Last summer it was Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah rockets. This year, it's al-Qaida-inspired militants and explosions keeping tourists away. This small, trouble-plagued country is once again set to lose millions of much-needed tourism dollars because of unrest. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Tawil) (Mahmoud Tawil - AP)

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Last summer it was Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah rockets. This year, it's al-Qaida-inspired militants and explosions keeping tourists away. This small, trouble-plagued country is once again set to lose millions of much-needed tourism dollars because of unrest.

"Thank God, each summer we have something different so that we don't get bored," said a sarcastic Rola Bejjani, a vendor in an empty shoe store at a deserted Beirut shopping center. "I haven't made a single sale in four days."

Summer is traditionally the high tourist season for Lebanon, when hundreds of thousands of visitors _ particularly Arabs from the oil-rich Gulf, and many Lebanese living abroad _ usually flood into the country to enjoy its nightlife, beaches and mountain resorts.

Lebanon was expecting more than 1.6 million tourists in the summer of 2006. But then the war between Israel and Hezbollah erupted on July 12. Tens of thousands of tourists and Lebanese streamed out _ many evacuated on military and commercial ships _ as Israeli airstrikes pounded the country.

The monthlong war left more than 1,000 people dead in Lebanon and about 150 in Israel and destroyed Lebanese bridges, roads and other infrastructure.

The Tourism Ministry and tour operators had been preparing to promote new programs to lure back tourists this summer.

But now this year's season is threatened by fighting between Lebanese troops and Fatah Islam militants in the Nahr el-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon.

Even before the battle erupted May 20, businessmen and tourism officials were worried over the fallout from the political power struggle that has turned violent several times this year.

Supporters of the Hezbollah-led opposition have been camping out in Beirut since Dec. 1, paralyzing the city's commercial heart as part of its campaign to topple Prime Minister Fuad Saniora's government.

The tensions had gotten so high that business leaders and trade unionists pleaded with rival camps to call a break from the mud-slinging campaigns in the media from June 1 to Sept. 10 for the sake of the tourist season and the economy.

"Together, for the 100-day truce," read blue, white and yellow billboards put up around the city.

To many, they now seem sadly outdated _ from a time when the political differences were the only worry. "We have Fatah Islam to deal with now," said Bejjani.