Airport passenger
traffic up 12 percent

Visitors include 1.7 million tourists

The number of passengers using the Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport increased in 2023 to 7.1 million, up 12 percent compared with the previous year.

Passenger arrivals rose by 11.5 percent to nearly 3.5 million. The number of departing passengers increased 13 percent to 3.6 million. July recorded the highest number of inbound passengers which reached more than 504,000 visitors, up nine percent compared to the same month a year earlier.

Inbound visitors included 1.7 million foreign tourists, according to data by the Ministry of Tourism (MoT). This represents a 14 percent increase compared to the number of tourists who visited the country in 2022. Tourists in 2023 mainly came from Iraq, the United States, Germany, France, Canada, Egypt, and Jordan.

According to MoT, the Gaza war resulted in a sharp drop in tourism receipts generated in the last quarter of 2023, when compared to expectations. Tourist arrivals plunged by 24 percent in that quarter, after recording an average monthly surge of 28 percent in the first nine months of the year.