It’s vacation time!

Lebanese travel agencies and the planning of summer holidays abroad

The summer season, when schools are off for two months and productivity at work slows down, is usually seen as the best time to leave one’s home country for a well-deserved break and discover new cities around the globe

Whether booked independently through airline search engines or planned as an all-inclusive package through travel agencies, leisure travel is often anticipated by travelers as the high point of the year, and by businesses as an important source of revenue.

In Lebanon, the idea of a vacation abroad is becoming more and more common, says Nakhal Travel’s general manager Elie Nakhal, who sees this as a positive sign for travel agencies.

SUMMERTIME AND LEBANESE TRAVEL AGENCIES

According to the travel agencies interviewed for this article, the summer season traditionally constitutes between 40 and 60 percent of their annual turnover in terms of leisure travel. “In the summer, the leisure business increases at the expense of business travel, while the opposite is true in winter,” says Nakhal, “though leisure travel still constitutes a bigger part of our business with roughly 60 percent.”

Johnny Modawar, marketing manager at Wild Discovery Travel and Tourism, explains that many Lebanese only travel during the summer vacation, as opposed to traveling during other school or national holiday periods. This concentrates a lot of holiday traffic across the same period from

While Europeans and Americans tend to plan their leisure trips almost a year in advance, benefitting . from special offers and discounted trips on hotels and airlines, the Lebanese are last minute planners, Boutros explains. “Previously, our flights didn’t fill up to maximum until two weeks before departure, which is really last minute. Starting from three years ago, we are seeing bookings coming in earlier and earlier so this year we were selling Easter packages along with our summer packages,” says Boutros, despite admitting that the bulk of their reservations still come at the last minute.