Caretaker Minister of Tourism, Walid Nassar, patronized on Saturday the reopening of the “Al-Mtein Museum of Art” in its new look in the municipal palace building in the Mtein area, crowning his visit to archaeological, tourist and religious sites in the region. In his delivered word during the ceremony, Minister Nassar expressed his pleasure to be visiting the region of Al-Mtein for the first time, noting that “the strategy of the Ministry of Tourism is sustainable tourism.” He said, “Since I assumed my duties at the Ministry, I began working to include Lebanon in the European Council of Cultural Trails. Lebanon, as a non-European country, became a member of the Council, which works on 4 paths: the Olive tree path, the Wine path, the Umayyad path, and the Phoenician path.” Nassar announced the establishment of a union for guest houses in Lebanon, and called on the owners of these houses to register on Monday, so that the Tourism Ministry issues exceptional licenses on Tuesday, “which means that we have a productive sector that includes more than 170 members and provides job opportunities, and hence, moving from a rentier economy to a productive economy, and this is what we are working to develop,” he asserted. Nassar also touched on the issue of administrative decentralization, saying: “Expanded administrative, political and financial decentralization is at the core of our system and our constitution in Taif,” adding that the Ministry of Tourism has launched a tourism project of administrative decentralization and the opening of 35 offices of the Ministry across the Lebanese territories. He also revealed that he will present a draft law to merge the ministries of tourism and culture to reduce the burden on the state and to establish a ministry of planning that existed in the past but was replaced with councils and funds that were the basis of waste in public money. Nassar finally announced including the Al-Mtein Museum of Art on the cultural tourism map and promoting it locally and internationally on all sites as a tourist and cultural landmark, whereby this decision would be circulated to tourism unions, tourism and travel agencies, and all tourism institutions in order to promote the Museum, also with the World Tourism Organization, the Arab Tourism Organization and the Council of Europe for Cultural Itineraries.

Source: National News Agency – Lebanon