By Greek City Times
Lebanon’s Tourism Minister, Avedis Guidanian praised Greece’s tourism sector during a media interview, on the sidelines of the 1st Greek Festival of Lebanon that ends in Jbeil (the ancient city of Byblos) on Sunday.
“We have a lot to learn from Greece in the tourism sector, especially in the services’ sector,” Guidanian said during his interview Greek news agency ANA.
At the festival’s inauguration on June 7, Guidanian said that Greece and Lebanon were trying to improve their already very good relations even further, especially in tourism.
“We have many similarities, as we are both Mediterranean countries, and we have a lot to learn from Greece in order to improve our services,” he noted, while referring to a need to strengthen cooperation on a trilateral, as well as a bilateral level, with the addition of Cyprus.
“As Tourism Minister I consider that we should follow Greece’s example and implement it here, since you are trying to overcome your economic problems by investing in tourism – and we must do the same in Lebanon,” he added.
Guidanian also referred to the sizeable number of Lebanese tourists in Greece, expressing hope that the number of Greeks that choose Lebanon as a holiday destination will increase in the near future. This was partly because Lebanon was not doing enough to promote itself as a tourist destination in Greece, he said, while also calling for an increase in the number of direct flights beween the two countries.
He noted that initiatives like the Greek Festival of Lebanon, which had 5,000 visitors on its first day, could help bring the two people closer, calling for more such events in the future.
