Mountain Trail calls for better coordination to promoted rural tourism

The minister of tourism, Michel Pharaon, underlined last Saturday the importance of the rural tourism project launched recently by his ministry to draw attention to remote Lebanese villages, their hidden potentials and employment prospects. Pharaon who was speaking during his sponsorship of the annual gala dinner for the Lebanon Mountain Trail (LMT) Association at Beirut Hippodrome, pointed out that LMT sustains the development of tourism and strengthens the villagers’ steadfastness to their land. “Every year, we relive with the Association different rural, mountain and ecological climates away from the political and confessional interferences,” Pharaon said. Similarly, LMT president, Nadine Weber, maintained that the association has partly contributed to the return of displaced Lebanese families to their villages, particularly that the hiking trail when passing through 16 out of 75 towns and villages across Lebanon benefits local producers who flock to showcase their food heritage to trekkers. Weber called for preserving and promoting this project as a touristic invention, and also for protecting its natural resources and cultural legacy. She advised the need to adjust the educational approaches of Lebanese schools as such to incorporate activities that prompt the creation of economic opportunities through the MLT initiative (Al Mustaqbal, Al Diyar, October 16, 2016)