The minister of tourism Avedis Guidanian revealed his first ever ministry’s plan for the professional promotion of tourism in the country and for transforming the sector into a combined private and public industry to this end. Guidanian elucidated the pillars of the strategy as follows: 1) attracting tourists from Arab and GCC countries and Europe and opening new outlets, like China, Russia and India, 2) strengthening internal tourism that is based on promoting Lebanese villages via the ministry’s social media platforms, in addition to organizing media tours to new towns and integrating them into its programs, 3) setting up so-called ‘tourism promotion authority’ to boost cooperation between the private and public sector in this regard. The authority will reportedly include the minister of tourism, Middle East Airlines (MEA), Casino du Liban and tourism involved syndicates, and 4) upgrading and enhancing tourism related legislations to facilitate the transactions and work of investors. On the other hand, the head of the Parliamentary Committee on Woman and Child, MP Inaya Ezzedeen, and the ministry of tourism, in coordination with the municipality of Tyre, held yesterday a training session on food safety in the tourism establishments in the southern city. On the occasion, Ezzedeen stressed that food safety is closely related to environmental conditions on the ground, pointing out that it constitutes a prop to active tourism and therefore, is a joint concern for a number of public department, like the ministries of health, agriculture, economy, industry and tourism. (Al Diyar, April 16, 2019)