Tourism

1. Organizing Visit Lebanon conference and working on the development of conference tourism.
2. Launching websites for recreational tourism and other websites for conference tourism.
3. Launching the Year of Religious Tourism (when) in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants.
4. Forming the Supreme Commission for Tourism.
5. In promotion and marketing
   1. Participating in several Arab and foreign exhibitions to promote Lebanon.
   2. Forming the Lebanese Council for Promotion.
   3. Launching a marketing representative office in Paris.
   4. Creating a new advertising campaign for Lebanon and producing advertising materials, leaflets and promotional films.
   5. Raising the departure fee by 10% and allocating it to the Ministry of Tourism for promotion and creating a card with Bank of Beirut, from which proceeds will be allocated to support a fund for promoting tourism.
6. Developing and improving tourism services and activating supervision
   1. Improving several services at Rafic Hariri International Airport (Like what).
   2. Issuing decisions to define seasonal tourist establishments licensing terms, and touristic guides fee.
   3. Increasing the number of tourist police and appointing a commander of brigadier rank, as well as contracting with inspectors to activate monitoring and follow-up on the ground.
   4. Creating an awareness campaign about food health and safety through a program in cooperation with Bureau Veritas.
   5. Implementing Decree No. 8431 issued on 4/7/2012 related to the prevention of smoking (writing more than 8000 tickets to violators).
   6. Inspecting ski centers on a periodical basis to verify the availability of the necessary conditions
   7. Urging touristic establishments to abide by the laws and following-up vigorously all institutions in order to complete their licenses by legal means (bold closing decisions were issued against a number of institutions).
   8. Following-up closely the file of the caves (Al-Zahlan – Al-Rayhan – Al-Kassarat Antelias – Kfarzabad – Qana – Kfarhim – Mebaaj – Ain Wa Zein – Jeita Grotto).
   9. Re-classifying of touristic establishments in accordance with international standards.10-Amending and reducing the fees on touristic cars.
7. Activating the work of the Ministry of Tourism
   1. Establishing a call center for the Ministry on the number 1735 for services, inquiries and complaints.
   2. Officially launching the work of the Single Window and developing the Ministry of Tourism website and transforming it into an electronic portal.
   3. Conducting competitions in the Civil Service Council to fill vacancies in the Ministry and returning the Ministry of Tourism employees to Casino du Liban.
   4. Collecting the Ministry’s investment revenues through the BOT (Jeita Facility – Tyre Rest House – Sidon Rest House – etc.).
8. Activating domestic tourism and productive tourism
9. Completing a draft decree licensing touristic establishments as “guest houses” and reopening the Saida tourist rest house after its rehabilitation.
10. Strengthening the role of offices inside Lebanon and creating offices in the city of Batroun and the vicinity of Jeita Grotto and the town of Nabatiyeh.
11. Launching the religious cultural tourism project.
12. Sponsoring and supporting local festivals in all Lebanese regions and supporting the Lebanese Mountain Trail project to encourage eco-tourism.
13. Activating foreign relations and tourism exchange agreements
14. Organizing a high-level cooperation forum for tourism ministers (Turkey – Syria – Jordan – Lebanon) within the framework of the Economic and Trade Cooperation Council for neighboring countries.
15. Signing several agreements and memoranda of understanding for tourism cooperation (Qatar, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Bulgaria, Tunisia, Korea..).
16. Holding several workshops and training courses.