by Michael Karam- the national ae

I love arriving at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport (Rhia). The four-and-a-half hour Middle East Airlines flight from London is the perfect decompression chamber to prepare both the neophyte and the veteran traveller alike for the madness that lies ahead in that the inside of the Airbus resembles the sitting room of a vast Lebanese home in which every extended family member is represented. Now of course, it’s all very sanitised. For the full experience, you have to hark back to the days when you could smoke on aeroplanes and the fuselage was one massive party. Then it was the real deal.

Even when flying stiff upper lip British Airways, the captain will more often than not be unable to resist telling everyone on board that he and his crew are looking forward to a night out in Beirut. The mind may boggle, but apparently the global enthusiasm for our dysfunctional city is contagious.

Disembarking on to the jetty at Rhia offers a host of sensory stimuli. There is the smell – a mix of aviation fuel, cigarettes, sweat and after shave – and the sights: the floodlit tarmac, the bored customs officers, weary dispatchers with wheelchairs and the slightly less scruffy, clearly more senior officials – "the US$100 men" – waiting to receive certain passengers – the MP, the minister’s wife, the designer with a particularly fragile ball gown; it can be anyone – who for the eponymous fee, they will whisk through passport control and, if needs be, customs.

By Sean Cronin

The slowdown in the advertising industry has led one of the region’s biggest agencies to transfer some staff from Dubai to Beirut to trim costs. Omnicom Media Group is shifting staff from its Dubai Media City regional headquarters to Beirut as big brands slash marketing budgets and corporates across the region cut back on spending.

The agency, whose clients include McDonald’s, hopes to save as much as 8 per cent on its payroll costs when between 20 and 30 positions are initially transferred to Beirut next year. More are expected to follow in 2018.

"We have to adapt to the changing dynamics of our industry," said Elie Khouri, the regional chief executive of Omnicom Media Group, in an interview in Dubai.

"Now you can be in a remote place and do a lot of things in our business. Of course you have to have the centre team that are client-facing, but you can do a lot of the back office work in other places. We were looking at India in certain aspects before and now we are looking at Beirut to do some of the things we do in Dubai to save costs."

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