Tourism

Tourism

 Lifestyle, Tourism

10 things to do in Beirut for less than $10

Being adventurous can be pretty pricey sometimes. Wouldn’t it be nice to have fun without straying outside the borders of your budget? Here are a few things you might enjoy doing that won’t cost you much.
1. Rent a bike from Beirut by Bike for as little as 5,000 L.L. You get it for an entire hourwhich is just enough time to reach Beirut Waterfront and enjoy the wonderful sights the city has to offer without getting too exhausted.
2. Round up a few friends and challenge each other to a bowling match at Score Bowling in Hamra. It’s exactly $10 dollars but the look on your opponent’s face when you win, is priceless.

3. Check out Café Em Nazih in Mar Mikhail. It’s an oriental, self-service resto/pub with delicious Lebanese food and inexpensive drinks. Plus there’s good music.

4. In the mood for some Lebanese ice-cream? My favorite is Bachir’s (photo). Just order the small cone with mixed flavors. Its colorful, mouth-watering, filling, and still under $2. Don’t worry if you can’t find it. There’s one on almost every other street.

5. You have to be really hungry for this one. Go to Zokak el Blat. There’s a tiny place called Snack Hammoudi. They have a variety of different sandwiches and platters to choose from. My personal favorite is the escalope burger. It’s extremely filling and it costs about 5,000 L.L. You won’t regret it, just don’t forget to hit the gym later on.

6. Take a walk around Hamra and nearby streets. If you’re even the least bit artistic, you’ll enjoy the graffiti. Some of it is colorful, some of it is influential, and some of it can be depressing. However, the best part about this one is you get a little exercise and it’s free!

7. If you’re into history and ancient artifacts, the National Museum is the place for you.The tickets aren’t more than a few dollars and the museum isn’t too large so you won’t get bored easily.

8. Walk through the streets of Gemayzeh. The buildings are beautiful and if you’re there during happy hour you can stop in for a quick drink that won’t exceed your budget.

9. Have you ever tried hookah? They’re usually less than $10 at most cafes and they allow you to relax and not feel like you’ve outstayed your welcome without ordering food. It’s a perfect opportunity to gossip and catch up with friends. However, it’s officially bad for your health!

10. Take a walk through the Sunday flee market at Jisr el Wate. Prices may range but even if you don’t buy anything, you get to experience some of the cultural diversity that Lebanon has to offer.

 

Source: iLoubnan

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 Lifestyle, Tourism

‘Eco-Lebanon’ offers must-read on local tourism

BEIRUT: Local anthropologist and tour operator Nour Farra Haddad has released what is arguably the most comprehensive guidebook ever on ecotourism in Lebanon.

Broken down into five color-coded sections spanning 400 pages, “Eco-Lebanon Nature and Rural Tourism: A Guide to Unveil Lebanon” is a joint project between Haddad and the Tourism Ministry, with the help of Hospitality Services. The book, a guided directory written in English, aims to promote internal tourism among Lebanese as foreign visitors have dwindled alongside security.

“The idea of the book, now especially, is to develop domestic tourism because we all know nowadays that we don’t have international tourists coming from abroad,” Haddad told The Daily Star. “Their first impression to the book is ‘Do we have all that in Lebanon?’”

The idea for the book came from Haddad’s experience as a tourism consultant, receiving constant calls from Lebanese asking where they can do certain activities.

“I thought it would be a good thing to put this data together,” she said.

Poor security and rising sectarianism has pushed Lebanese to retreat into their respective communities. That fact has caused a fear of exploring and a major challenge in the development of domestic tourism, Haddad said.

Take south Lebanon, for example, where the stigma of war and the region’s association with Hezbollah has discouraged tourism despite its wealth of natural reserves, hiking and water activities and Christian religious sites. “Unfortunately, the south is still associated with war and violence,” Haddad said. “It’s the Lebanese reality. I know we are all dreaming of moving around without these sorts of associations.”

Most, if not all, of the travel guides covering Lebanon – such as Lonely Planet or locally produced guides – target an international audience and offer a glance at the more famous and well-operated touristic sites, places such as the ruins in Baalbek or the Jeita Grotto. In contrast, “Eco-Lebanon” offers detailed contact information about activities so far off the beaten path they even surprised the writer, she said.

“When I submitted the project to the Ministry of Tourism, it was just 200 pages, but as I was working on it, I found so many things,” she said.

For example, Shebaa, an area of south Lebanon, is rarely mentioned outside the context of sporadic border skirmishes with Israel. But Haddad discovered there’s a lot more to the area than the tense Blue Line.

For example, she found the Museum of Water Mills, a historic and touristic site in one of the least-visited areas of the country. There are also hiking trails to Mount Hermon that start in Shebaa, where along the way hikers will find traces of ancient Roman religious sites such as a stone enclosure in Qasr Antar.

At the peak of the mountain is a site for Austrian U.N. peacekeepers. The book also explains that this is one of the last habitats in the Middle East with wild bears.

It’s these obscure facts that make “Eco-Lebanon” an unprecedented guide to the country. Even sections on well-documented attractions, such as the booming wine industry, include lesser-known or uncommercialized options in addition to well-known sites. For example, the book lists 53 different vintners, including monasteries and more obscure producers with private vineyards.

“Did you know that Phoenician ships are still being built in Tyre?” former Tourism Minister Fady Abboud asked in the introduction. “Did you know that wonderful hiking trips were rehabilitated by the municipalities of Daroun and Aintoura. … Did you know you can find more than 125 alternative lodgings in Lebanon as social centers, monasteries and [camp sites].”

The help of the Tourism Ministry in funding the project made it possible for Haddad to avoid advertising in the book, which as a result takes an unbiased approach to suggesting things to do. Each activity section includes options from south to north and highlights particular projects and places based on their novelty or merit only.

Lebanon’s official touristic sites are few in comparison to the many privately operated or informal activities. Agri-tourism is the largest section in Haddad’s book, for example, but its activities are some of the most underdeveloped attractions in the country.

A popular fall activity in the United States, apple picking is one of the only pick-your-own activities that are officially offered in the country, though fruit and vegetable harvesting is a year-round occupation here. The olive and olive oil season also has established pick-your-own outings, as well as press and production tours.

A sign of the book’s Lebanese audience, Haddad suggests the reader ask around to friends and family to find a generous farmer willing to give a tour of their land. If the reader’s social network is confined to city dwellers, then Haddad has listed two dozen farms, growing and raising all kinds of produce and animals, that informally welcome visitors.

The guide is best used after a careful read through. Buried in the small font and hundreds of pages are activities some may never know to look up. Without an index at the back, skimming the book and becoming acquainted with its subsections is a must if you don’t want to miss out on some of the best tips in the book’s expanse.

Readers can also hunt for obscure details by looking for a recurring caricature of an old man, who offers help information throughout the book.

Haddad was quick to point out that “Eco-Lebanon” does not include everything, and that for some subsections, her suggestions are just a selection of the options to, for instance, dine next to Lebanon’s idyllic rivers. She also said she designated the book’s offerings as ecotourism, but that she could not ensure everything was 100 percent environmentally safe or sustainable. That’s the nature of an underdeveloped industry, she said.

“We want to believe that there is still hope for tourism in Lebanon,” she said.

“The Lebanese can make a difference if you give them the tools.”

Source: The Daily Star

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 Tourism

Simple treats in garish Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS: You might not expect to find farm-to-table dining in Las Vegas. But that’s exactly why tourists are lining up at a rundown corner a few blocks near the old casinos in the town’s seedy core.

It takes visitors arriving by cab a few minutes to locate the nouveau diner Eat on the ground floor of a motel-style apartment complex that rents rooms by the month and looks like a place where a down-on-his-luck crime-caper hero might live.

But this is Las Vegas’ first neighborhood restaurant with an emphasis on freshness and locally sourced ingredients. Eat has been a favorite among locals since it opened two years ago, when more than 100 people lined up to get their first taste. Chef and owner Natalie Young temporarily closed the restaurant that first night to regroup.

She conceived the restaurant as an antidote to the caviar-drenched, truffle-infused upscale restaurants most commonly associated with Sin City. She spent more than a decade working at some of the Strip’s fanciest venues, including the restaurant at the top of the ersatz Eiffel Tower. At Eat, she’s kept the linen napkins, but chucked the overheated menu descriptions and steep prices.

“There’s enough Vegas in Vegas,” she said, raising her voice a little to be heard above the buzz of a typically packed morning at Eat.

The menu is small, with a Southern accent, and it’s closed for dinner. Breakfast offerings include buttery cinnamon biscuits served with berries piled on top, free-range eggs any way you like and pillowy beignets with seasonal jam and mascarpone. For lunch, there are salads, sandwiches on thick toasted bread, shrimp and grits and the best grilled cheese in town. There can be a two-hour wait for a table on weekends – though it’s more like 15 minutes on weekdays.

The place tends to be noisy, and that’s by design. The ceilings are high, the tables are spread out and there is no Wi-Fi, to encourage diners to interact with each other.

For locals, there’s another major appeal: You can walk there. Other cities take for granted the ability to stroll from lunch to a store to a cafe, but until recently in Las Vegas, residents have had to choose between driving to strip malls or braving the sprawling indoor mall that is a modern casino.

Now, however, downtown Vegas is starting to cohere into the city’s first traditional neighborhood. Within the past 12 months, a critical mass of boutique restaurants has moved downtown, a novelty in an area long dominated by the Heart Attack Grill, where people who weigh over 160 kilograms eat free.

Visitors wary of the wait at Young’s restaurant can walk a few blocks south to MTO, which serves fresh comfort food in a brightly lit space. Or they can amble north toward the touristy Fremont Street, where the Rat Pack once gambled, and check out Wild, a whimsical gluten-free pizza and salad place that is much more delectable than you might think. A block away, Le Thai offers addictive, spicy Thai food in a tiny space.

Wild and Eat were both funded by the Downtown Project, which is remaking the once-derelict heart of Las Vegas with funding from Zappo’s CEO Tony Hsieh.

The project also is responsible for a new park built out of shipping containers opposite Eat. One of the containers is home to Pinches Tacos, arguably the city’s best Mexican food. But no matter where you eat, the Container Park is an appealing after-meal destination. It offers beer, wine and giant twirling slides for adults as well as kids. This is still Vegas, after all.

Source: Associated Press

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 Tourism

Tourism is Lebanon’s biggest missed opportunity

A few days ago, the World Travel & Tourism Council published a report titled “Travel & Tourism, Economic Impact 2014, Lebanon.” The report’s contents were not surprising. It shows numbers indicating the importance of the tourism sector in Lebanon because tourism contributes to the national income, creates jobs, and accounts for a significant portion of the labor market. 

The report reveals the size of the economic potential of the tourism sector, which until now has not been fully invested. In other words, the report showed the cost of missed opportunity arising from the lack of stability and from the delay in implementing structural reforms that are necessary for all productive sectors and for the public administration.

According to the report, the direct contribution of the travel and tourism sector to the Lebanese economy for 2014 is expected to reach $3.23 billion, which is 6.9% of total GDP. Moreover, the direct contribution of this sector to the economy is expected to grow by 2.2%, which is modest and puts Lebanon 159th in the world in this category.

This is not surprising, especially since the growth rate expected for Lebanon, according to the most optimistic estimates, is no more than 2%. The growth engines are almost idle because of the worsening Syrian crisis and its effect on all the security, political and economic agreements. It should be noted that the total contribution (both direct and indirect) for the travel and tourism sector, which affects all economic sectors, is expected to be $9 billion dollars, or 19.3% of economic activity in 2014.

As for the impact of this sector on the labor market, the report indicated that its total contribution to the national labor force could reach 18.6%, the equivalent of 261,300 jobs. The sector’s direct contribution to employment is expected to grow by 2.7% this year, putting Lebanon 99th in the world.

This report confirms what everybody already knows about the tourism sector in the Lebanese economy. The sector contributes a large share to GDP, making it a key economic pillar and a primary growth driver, which must be activated to restart the growth cycle and take the country out of its current stalemate. The low growth rates of economic activity and the labor market, and the relatively low global scores, are only evidence of the cost of the political and security crises and the tensions afflicting Lebanon.

This is the cost of missed opportunities. What’s interesting is the report’s positive projections until the year 2024. During that period, the expected growth in the long term puts Lebanon in 14th place globally, out of 183 countries covered by the study. These projections show the large potential of this sector, where investments are being hindered by the political conditions and the inability of the ruling class to overcome them.

In fact, the tourism sector in Lebanon has a productive capacity that may exceed even those projections if one takes into account the many possibilities for development, as is the case in economically developed countries. The tourism sector grew significantly and became more versatile. There is now medical tourism, business tourism, and even religious tourism. All of those have a fertile ground in Lebanon if the proper environment is made for business, good governance, and an appropriate legislative framework.

In the area of ​​travel, the return of calm and stability, and making Beirut’s skies open to all, would be enough to transform this distinctive city — given its geographic location and its level of services — into an international hub for transport and communications, which would boost growth.

There is a raging debate inside Lebanon on controversial topics, which have been outstanding for years, around a dialogue table, an extra-constitutional institution. The dialogue is intended to move the conflict from the street into a locked room. While political parties exchange charges about the economy, the growth of public debt, high unemployment, emigration, and the disruption to the production cycle, this report comes to shed light on one sector and shows, by the numbers, the underlying productive capacity of the Lebanese economy and how it is being crippled by politics. And developing of this sector is only the tip of the iceberg.

However, the political class is totally absent from the economic worries, and published reports by international institutions are neither read nor discussed. Ironically, the presidential bazaar kicked off two days ago, with the start of the constitutional period to elect a new president. There is no official candidate for the job yet, and the lack of candidates means a lack of electoral programs, including reform and economic programs. Presidents normally come “from the outside,” i.e., through a regional settlement. As we await what the outside will do, Lebanon is stuck dreaming about reforms, which may come one day, but every day until then is a missed opportunity.

Al-Monitor

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 Tourism

Daring urban explorers pursue offbeat adventures, high or low

HONG KONG: Dangling his feet off the edge of a skyscraper more than 50 stories above the streets of Hong Kong, Jonathan Tsang looks as relaxed as if he were kicking back in his own living room.

For most people, the view below would be a dizzying, terrifying spectacle. But for 25-year-old Tsang, it brings a sense of calm.

“The population is really dense, and sometimes it’s just kind of suffocating to the point where you need some time to yourself,” he said. “That’s mostly why I come up here.”

Tsang, who asked AFP to use a pseudonym, is one of a growing number of so-called urban explorers, a subculture of adrenaline junkies, photographers and history enthusiasts who treat the world’s forgotten – and often forbidden – places as their own personal playgrounds.

The pursuit has long been popular in North America and Europe, and now Asia is becoming an increasingly sought-after destination for an intrepid new generation of “urbexers.”

In February, two Russian daredevils scaled China’s tallest building with their bare hands. Vadim Makhorov and Vitaliy Raskalov took advantage of lax security over the Chinese New Year holiday to sneak into the under-construction Shanghai Tower, releasing a hair-raising video of their stunt that went viral.

Hong Kong, a city with more skyscrapers than anywhere else in the world, is a particularly attractive destination for both local and international “rooftoppers,” a daring subset of adventurers with a head for heights willing to risk arrest, injury and even death as they scale some of the world’s tallest buildings.

Getting to the top of many Hong Kong residential buildings, said Tsang, is often as easy as bluffing your way past the concierge and taking a lift to the top floor. But some of the tallest luxury complexes, hotels and office towers present a much greater challenge.

“You try and do as much research as you can. If other explorers have been there then you can get advice about how to get in – like whether there is a hole in a fence somewhere,” he said.

“Usually there are security guards, but you just have to be patient. You can’t just barge into a place and walk up to the roof. You have to wait for the right time.”

Many attempts end in failure.

“The success rate on rooftops is probably 20-30 percent,” he said. “And at times it can be discouraging. You might walk up 30-40 stories and then you discover you can’t get past the final door. But when you do finally get to the top, wow, it’s hard to describe. It’s just beautiful.”

Accessing the roof of the skyscraper – a luxury hotel in the city’s bustling Kowloon district – was alarmingly easy.

Tsang and an urbexing friend who uses her exploring name Airin T simply walked through a mall, into the hotel and took an elevator most of the way up. To avoid any guards or staff near the more exclusive penthouse suites, the last few stories were made on foot via a staircase and through an unlocked door that led to the roof.

But any misconception that rooftopping is a safe hobby was soon dispelled as Tsang and his friend climbed a large illuminated dome at the top of the building. The ladder up to the dome hung over the edge of the skyscraper while the pathway at the top was little more than a foot wide. A slip on either would mean certain death.

“I do have a fear of heights,” said Tsang, visibly elated from his climb. “It sounds kind of cliched, but it’s about facing your fears. And it really does help.”

Hong Kong’s police declined an interview request by AFP but warned that practitioners could face criminal damage and burglary charges in the event of any destruction of property.

No explorers have been prosecuted to date.

Yet not all forms of urban exploration are about seeking the adrenaline rush that comes from soaring above the crowds on rooftops.

Airin, a 25-year-old office worker by day, is a keen rooftopper. But she also spends much of her time exploring Hong Kong’s myriad abandoned places, from shuttered mental asylums to discarded factories and crumbling apartment blocks.

Sporting bright blue hair, suspenders and a leather skirt, she looks like a character from a manga comic as she strolls along the decaying paths around an abandoned village in Hong Kong’s rural Sai Kung district.

In one house, she cuts past a traditional table still displaying ancestor offerings, up a rotten wooden staircase to a bedroom littered with broken pieces of furniture.

For Airin, who has gone urbexing as far afield as Russia, South Korea and Japan, abandonments offer a hidden window into the past.

“You can feel that time stops here, and that’s what attracts me,” she said.

Wong Chuk Yeung is one of around 100 traditional villages in Hong Kong that lie shuttered.

“The young people move out and they have their families in the city. The old people stay and [eventually] die so it becomes abandoned,” Airin said of the village.

Tsang believes urbexers are too often portrayed as adrenaline junkies and that their respect for leaving places untouched is ignored.

“There’s a lot of people putting labels on us. Calling us thrill seekers, daredevils,” he said.

“That’s true, there are some people like that but it doesn’t fully represent this subculture.”

Meanwhile Airin believes more and more people across Asia will inevitably be drawn to explore the forbidden as the subculture grows.

“Everyone is actually born an explorer,” she said. “But they just don’t realize it.”

(AFP)

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 Tourism

Vienna palace offers Hapsburg flat at princely price

VIENNA: Vienna’s opulent Schoenbrunn Palace, the former summer residence of the imperial Habsburg family, will open its doors to tourists looking to spend the night like Emperor Franz Josef and Empress Sisi.

An apartment – once reserved for close relatives of the court – can be booked from April 30 at a starting price of 699 euros ($960) per person per night. The two-bedroom flat with kitchen and dining room sleeps four.

Those looking to experience full imperial grandeur – and who have the cash to spare – can reserve such amenities as a personal butler, a horse-drawn carriage and a chef.

The late 17th-century rococo palace was once the secondary residence of the Habsburg monarchy, which ruled the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918.

It is one of Austria’s top tourist attractions and registered 2.9 million visitors last year. In 1996, UNESCO listed Schoenbrunn and its gardens as a world heritage site, calling it a remarkable example of Baroque synthesis of the arts.

Austria Trend Parkhotel – which will operate the hotel suite – hopes to capitalize on this charm and sees the apartment as attractive to foreign tourists from East Asia and Europe.

“Making the apartment feel like a part of Schoenbrunn without making it a copy of other rooms was important to the architect,” a spokeswoman for Austria Trend said. “We looked for furniture that was in the style, but still making it modern enough for a hotel.”

A 400,000-euro revamp updated the apartment to palatial opulence, with Maria Theresa chandeliers, gold accents, moire wallpaper and “pineapple damask” motifs.

The red silk damask fabric, mistakenly named after its semblance to a stylized pineapple, was used exclusively for the Viennese Court at Schoenbrunn and the Hofburg – the main Habsburg residence in Vienna.

The views of the gardens and the hilltop Gloriette pavilion complete the imperial ambience.

“It is probable that even Elizabeth Petznek, the daughter of Crown Prince Rudolf and famous as the ‘Red Duchess,’ lived in these rooms toward the end of the monarchy,” said Franz Sattlecker, managing director of the Schoenbrunn Palace Company.

Petznek, the favorite granddaughter of Emperor Franz Joseph, rocked the House of Habsburg when she became a committed Socialist party member.

Immediately before its renovation, the hotel suite had been used as a normal flat, one of around 135 such apartments rented out on the palace grounds. Prospective tenants apply to join a waiting list and pay neighborhood market prices.

Following the downfall of the monarchy, the newly founded Austrian Republic became the owner of Schoenbrunn and preserved its rooms as a museum. British forces used the palace as offices during the postwar Allied occupation of Austria.
The Daily Star

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