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Hotel occupancy up, so are five-star rates

by Rania Ghanem -businessnews.com.lb Hotels are breathing a sigh of relief after four difficult years, according to a special report about hospitality in the August issue of Lebanon Opportunities. Rami Sayess, Regional Vice President and General Manager of Four Seasons Hotel Beirut, said: “Business began improving in October 2016.” He said that if business were to continue at the same pace, profits would more than double than those achieved since operations began. Sayess said that the difference this year is the influx of French, British, Italian, German visitors, and expats living in Dubai. Saudis, followed by Kuwaitis and Qataris, are among the top Gulf nationals visiting the country. However, the length of time booked has decreased from several weeks to ten days on average. Average occupancy rates in Beirut hotels rose 6.6 points to reach 61.1 percent in the first half of the year, according to a report on the performance of four and five star hotels by Ernst and Young. Ernst and Young reported that the average room rate increased by seven percent to reach $145. Room yield increased 19 percent to $89. The number of tourists grew 14 percent, reaching 826,000 visitors, according to the Ministry of Tourism. Fadi Kaedbey, General Manager of Ramada Plaza Beirut, said: “We increased occupancy rates by targeting a new demographic.” The hotel readjusted its tariffs to appeal to tourist groups from Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey. Occupancy rates increased to more than 60 percent last year, with a better room yield. To compensate for the fall in pure touristic activity, hotels are implementing other strategies such as creating additional food and beverage outlets, and targeting the conference and meeting (MICE) business.

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Last al-Nusra Front Militants in Lebanese Camps Cross Back Into Syria

Hezbollah fighter looks toward Syria while standing in the fields of the Lebanese border village of Brital, Lebanon. (File)

BEIRUT (Sputnik) — Buses with Syrian militants and their families who were staying in Lebanese refugee camps crossed back into Syria late on Wednesday, sources with Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement told Sputnik. Members of Jabhat Fatah al Sham terror group, formerly known as al-Nusra Front were granted safe passage to Syria through the mountainous Aarsal region on the Lebanese-Syrian border as part of a pact to free Hezbollah prisoners. "The expulsion of Nusra militants, their relatives and those willing to follow them is over. A total of 116 buses have departed," the source said, adding this number included vehicles with health aid workers. A source in the Lebanese militant movement told Sputnik earlier that a total of 7,777 people – fighters and others – were to leave Lebanese territory under the arrangement. The withdrawal followed Hezbollah’s recent gains in fighting against Syrian militants in Aarsal, a major arms and gunmen smuggling hub. Islamists have also been using Syrian refugee camps there as hideouts and recruitment grounds.

Why the Middle East hated Obama but loves Trump

By Susan B. Glasser, Article represents opinion of the author and does not represent khazen.org

Russia won in Syria thanks to President Barack Obama’s inaction. The Middle East unraveling of the past decade is due in no small part to America not listening to her allies in the region. Never mind President Donald Trump’s Muslim-bashing rhetoric, he may just be a better partner. For months, leaders of America’s Arab allies in the Mideast have telegraphed this view of the world, and it helps explain why the gilded palaces of the troubled, war-torn region are the few places on the planet — outside Russia — where Trump has been more popular than the president he succeeded.This is the case Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri laid out in an exclusive interview for The Global Politico at the end of a weeklong visit to Washington. The tone was measured, but taken together his comments amount to a striking and stark indictment of Obama and much recent U.S. policy in the Middle East. “The unfortunate consequence of not acting” there, Hariri argued, has been Russia’s restoration as a regional heavyweight, the resurrection of Bashar Assad’s bloody regime in Syria and the failure to produce an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

“Clarity,” the prime minister said, and the hope for a more decisive approach is the reason why he and other Arab leaders prefer Trump, despite the bombast and uncertainty the first six months of his presidency have unleashed. Unstated, but by all accounts just as significant, is the expectation that Trump will take a more hawkish approach toward Syria’s backers in Iran, and Hariri repeatedly brought up concessions Obama made toward Tehran to get his nuclear deal as an example of how the U.S. lost its way in the region. Given the bloody six-year war in next-door Syria that has come close to overwhelming tiny Lebanon, sending a flood of 1.5 million refugees into a fragile nation of just 4.5 million people and putting the terrorist group ISIS right on their border, it’s a case worth listening to — even if you think it absolves the Arab world of accountability for its own actions.

Thousands of Syrian militants poised to leave Lebanon-Syria border zone under deal

U.N. peacekeepers were investigating reports of an explosion in a Hezbollah stronghold.

FLEITA, Syria, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- Tens of buses are ready to transfer thousands of militants and civilian refugees from Lebanon into an insurgent-held city in northern Syria. Convoys of buses entered the Lebanese side of the mountainous barrens of Qalamoun region in western Syria on Tuesday, as part of a deal between the Lebanese Hezbollah group and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front. The deal, which started with a ceasefire, is designed for the evacuation of all Nusra Front militants from Juroud Arsal region on the Lebanese side of the borders with Syria toward Syria's northern city of Idlib and other rebel strongholds in Syria. The deal came after Hezbollah and the Syrian army jointly launched a war on the Nusra positions in Syria's Qalamoun region, mainly in the Fleita barrens and the adjacent Arsal barrens in Lebanon. The battle lasted for three days, during which the Syrian army and Hezbollah defeated and cleared Fleita of the Nusra militants, while in Lebanon, the terror-designated group agreed to a deal to leave its positions. Around 9,000 Nusra militants in addition to 2,500 Syrian refugees who want to go with the Nusra militants were set to leave as a second stage of the deal. The first stage was concluded earlier this week, with both Nusra and Hezbollah exchanging the bodies of their dead fighters. Still, the evacuation, which was scheduled for Monday, was delayed due to complications in the negotiations, some reports suggested.

On Tuesday, the buses from the Syrian side of the borders were on standby for the evacuation of the militants and refugees from Arsal through Fleita all the way to Idlib. Xinhua reporters at the site were escorted to Fleita at the early time Tuesday, and the entry of the buses haven't been done yet. Sources from inside Lebanon said that negotiations on high levels are taking place amid a security tight-lip on the details behind the delay. Pan-Arab al-Mayadeen said that the militants are urging for the release of some of the inmates from inside Lebanese prisons to be part of the evacuation. It's most likely that the evacuation will be postponed. Around 1.5 million Syrian refugees poured into Lebanon throughout Syria's six-year war, with several thousands of them living in makeshift camps near Arsal. Also, thousands of Nusra militants have also stationed in the Arsal barrens when they were in control of the Syrian side of the borders throughout the crisis, prompting Hezbollah to unleash the recent battle to completely end the presence of Nusra militants in Lebanon.

BEIRUT (AP) — A committee of Syrian refugees in Lebanon's eastern border region says tens of thousands of the group will remain where they are despite an arrangement offered to them to return to Syria. Khaled Raad, a member of the refugees' Coordination Committee with the Lebanese government, says the vast majority of the refugees in Lebanon's Arsal border region will not accept to return to Syria, for fear of war, hardship, and oppressive jihadist rule. He spoke to the AP on Tuesday.

Lebanese warplane strikes IS positions

جديد قضية دهم مخيمات عرسال... احالة دفعة جديدة من الموقوفين للقضاء

BEIRUT, July 31 (Xinhua) -- A Lebanese warplane struck the Islamic State group (IS) posts in the outskirts of Ras Baalbeck Monday, which resulted in injuries of the militants, the local LBCI TV reported. The strikes come following reports that the Lebanese Army has reinforced areas around the northeastern towns of Ras Baalbeck and Al-Qaa near IS held Lebanese territory, warning that they would launch an offensive to push the terrorist group out of the country. Hezbollah launched last week an offensive against Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly known as al-Nusra Front) that ended with a cease-fire agreement Thursday. The agreement consists also on the evacuation of al-Nusra's militants and their families from the outskirts of the Lebanese border town of Arsal to north Syria, and the return of eight Hezbollah fighters held by al-Nusra, five from northern Syria and three from the outskirts of Lebanon's Arsal.

Exchange of bodies ahead of Syria-Lebanon border plan

by Philip Issa, The Associated Press - BEIRUT – Hezbollah and a Syrian affiliate to Al-Qaida exchanged the bodies of dead fighters along the Lebanese-Syrian border on Sunday in the first stage of an agreement to restore order to a contested frontier zone. The al-Qaida-linked Fatah al-Sham Front is expected to leave the border region in the coming stages, following two weeks of battles with Hezbollah and the Syrian army. But the Front announced Sunday it had captured three Hezbollah fighters, one day after Hezbollah admitted a group had gone missing in the Arsal border region. It was not immediately clear whether the revelation would affect the deal underway to resettle the Fatah al-Sham Front. The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah handed over the bodies of nine al-Qaida fighters in exchange for the bodies of five of its own, according to the Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV station. Lebanese Red Cross spokesman George Kattani says a woman and child were also handed over to the al-Qaida affiliate, known as the Nusra Front and recently rebranded as Fatah al-Sham Front. The exchange, like the battles that preceded it, underscores Hezbollah’s clout in regional affairs as it clears the border of al-Qaida and Islamic State group militants, with the Lebanese government largely a bystander. U.S. President Donald Trump credited the Lebanese government with standing up to Hezbollah, last week, but the Lebanese Army assumed a defensive position behind Hezbollah lines in the course of the battles in the Arsal badlands. Hezbollah is also a member of Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s government. The U.S. classifies Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. The Syrian military provided air support to Hezbollah’s ground operations around Arsal.

Hezbollah’s Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah, said in a speech Wednesday his fighters fought “shoulder to shoulder” with Syrian soldiers on the Syrian side of the border. Twenty-six Hezbollah fighters and between 47 and 90 Al-Qaida fighters were killed in the fighting, Hezbollah media officials told reporters on a tour of the Arsal badlands on Saturday. The fighting ended with a cease-fire Thursday for negotiations to allow refugees, fighters, and family members to leave to Syria’s northwest Idlib province, leaving Hezbollah and the Lebanese and Syrian states in control of this corner of the border. Up to 9,000 Syrians could be seeking resettlement, al-Manar reported.