BEIRUT — More than 1.5 million tourists visited Lebanon in the first 10 months of 2009, or 43 percent more than the same year-earlier period, the tourism ministry said on Saturday.

“This number marks a 42.7 percent increase for the same period from 2008 and an 84 percent increase from 2007,” a ministry statement said.

A record one million tourists landed in the tiny Mediterranean country in July alone, the ministry said.

Ua ʻōlelo ka ʻoihana ua manaʻo ʻo Lebanona e hoʻokipa i ʻelua miliona mau mākaʻikaʻi ma ka hopena o 2009, kahi helu like me ka hapalua o ka heluna o ka ʻāina.

Most visitors are Lebanese expatriates and tourists from the oil-rich Gulf, but the tiny Mediterranean country has also gained popularity as a holiday destination among Europeans.

Tourism in Lebanon had taken a beating in recent years after a string of assassinations that began with a Beirut bombing that killed former premier Rafiq Hariri in February 2005.

In 2006, Israel and Lebanon’s Shiite militia Hezbollah fought a devastating summer war and the following year the army battled with Al-Qaeda-inspired Islamists in a Palestinian refugee camp.

However, tourism made a dramatic recovery in 2008 with the arrival of 1.3 million visitors to the country once dubbed the “Switzerland of the Middle East.”

He aha e lawe ʻia mai kēia ʻatikala:

Tourism in Lebanon had taken a beating in recent years after a string of assassinations that began with a Beirut bombing that killed former premier Rafiq Hariri in February 2005.
Ua ʻōlelo ka ʻoihana ua manaʻo ʻo Lebanona e hoʻokipa i ʻelua miliona mau mākaʻikaʻi ma ka hopena o 2009, kahi helu like me ka hapalua o ka heluna o ka ʻāina.
In 2006, Israel and Lebanon’s Shiite militia Hezbollah fought a devastating summer war and the following year the army battled with Al-Qaeda-inspired Islamists in a Palestinian refugee camp.