In a press conference held today at the Four Seasons Hotel Beirut, the Hotel Owners Association addressed the audience sharing its fears and worries about the level the difficult circumstances has reached, and about the status of the industry in the country.

Pierre Achkar, president of the association, presented during the conference the stages that the hotel sector has been through since 1998 and the difficulties that this sector has faced since 2011 until today.

He said: “We raised our voices in every forum and conference, we raised our voices with all the presidents, ministers, parliamentary blocs, and every source of decision. We are revolutionaries because we insisted on completing the message of our ancestors and our fathers who built the tourism sector since the beginning of last century. They put Lebanon on the tourism map at a time when tourism was exclusive to Lebanon and our working partners also had exclusive expertise. We insisted and rejected all the temptations coming from several neighboring countries to attract our expertise and investments.These included real estate donations, energy support, incentives and aid, as well as long-term financing of at least 20 years. Yes, we refused to not build Lebanon. Is this our fault?”

He added that the association submitted a report to the Minister of Tourism that shows that “the 2018 hotel revenues are 40 percent less than in 2009/2010 and that these revenues did not compensate for the accumulated losses.” This is leading numerous hotel properties to default on their loans and bank dues. 

Also, he said that the hospitality industry is more skeptical and at risk due to the situation because its expenses never stop throughout the whole year. “We are the first sector affected by political, economic and security conditions and the last sector to recover, because it requires external confidence.”

He concluded his speech asking to be treated fairly equivalent to the situation and the crisis. He also asked  banks to take into consideration the difficult circumstances the whole country has been through, and to decrease interest rates to allow hoteliers to maintain their properties. He also asked for a ‘temporary amnesty’ until the country recovers.