Flights for holidays season “fully-booked”

Only three-star hotels see high occupancy rates

The Ministry of Tourism (MoT) said flight reservations for the coming holiday season have reached 100 percent capacity. The MoT said it is looking forward to a safe and stable political situation in order to attract tourists and enjoy a fruitful season.

Jamil Bakhos, general manager at the Holiday Inn-Dunes hotel said that so far the reservation rate for the holidays ranges between 20 and 30 percent. “The soaring flight reservation rate announced by the MoT does not match our bookings,” Bakhos said. Most of the forecasted arrivals are expatriates who usually stay with their families. He said non-Lebanese tourists are mainly Iraqis and Egyptians whose expenditure per stay does not compete with that of tourists from the Gulf.

“We expect reservations to increase, but our performance will still be way behind that seen in previous years. Occupancy is expected to reach the average rate attained during a regular season rather than the holidays,” said Bakhos.

Ghenwa Raydan, incoming department officer at Barakat Travel said that their holiday reservations, whether for hotels or tours, has not reached ten percent of their previous rates during similar seasons. “We are hoping that bookings would increase within the three coming weeks, but hotel reservations should have been made already.”

Raydan said that hotels are adopting a heavy promotional strategy with attractive discounts. “Bookings in four- and five- star hotels are minimal, while three-star hotels are having high bookings and sometimes reach full-occupancy, probably because they offer rooms at lower costs.”