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ABSTRACT
This article is an historical study of tourism development in mandate era Lebanon (1920–1943). Based on organisational papers as well as governmental and contemporary press records, it examines the efforts of the Société d’Encouragement au Tourisme (S.E.T.), established in 1935, to develop tourist infrastructure and promulgate a nation called Lebanon. Tourist development, including the building of roads, the making of centres d’estivage, and the preservation of natural features, this article argues, consolidated a hierarchical conception of a Lebanese nation within its colonial boundaries. While tourism development integrated Beirut and Mount Lebanon alongside selected ruins such as Baalbek, it excluded other regions such as Jabal ‘Amil in the South and ‘Akkar in the North. Furthermore, this article argues, that advocates deemed tourism a practice of citizenship. Tourism development not only sought to create symbols of national identity, but to instil national sentiments in Lebanese citizens. Under the banner of tourism development, its advocates mobilised several registers to enact social and cultural reform, including through the organisation of spectacles, educational programmes, and legal stipulations that conceptualised a strong nation-state to regulate, control, and reprimand its citizens.
Disclosure statement
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Notes
1 This article builds on the master’s thesis I finished in 2019 while studying at the American University of Beirut. As such this work is the product of invaluable feedback, advice, and guidance from several people. Nadya Sbaiti, who supervised the thesis at AUB, has shepherded this research from its early stages, and it was just one of her many brilliant suggestions to explore the production of space as an analytical focus. Kirsten Scheid has given crucial advice on how to approach sources in her uncanny combination of anthropological and art historical methods. Without the trust and generosity of Hiram Corm and Roderick Cochrane, and their invaluable family archives, writing this article would not have been possible. I am indebted to Lorenzo Trombetta and Joseph Kiwan for introducing me to the Corm and Sursock families. Furthermore, I am grateful to many important conversations I had with Jasmin Daam, Fawwaz Traboulsi’s cautioning to look beyond rhetoric as well as Dylan Baun, Waleed Hazbun, Akram Khater, Kristin Monroe, and the anonymous reviewers of the Journal of Tourism History all of whom have provided salient feedback at different stages of writing this article. In the final stages of revising this article, Eric Zuelow has carefully and discerningly smoothed over rough edges in my writing and analytical contributions; his meticulous editing serves as an example to be emulated.
2 Ibrahim Maklouf, ‘Dhour El Choueïr Ou Les Mirages de La Montagne’, La Revue du Liban, July 1935.
3 Ibid.
4 Compare for example Patrick Young, ‘The Consumer as National Subject: Bourgeois Tourism in the French Third Republic, 1880–1914’ (PhD Dissertation, New York, Columbia University, 2000).
5 Manu Goswami’s work is a critical discussion and expansion of Benedict Anderson’s paradigmatic conception of the nation as an imagined community, moving beyond the role of newspapers, maps, museums and the census highlighted by Anderson as central to nation-building. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991). Manu Goswami, ‘Rethinking the Modular Nation Form: Towards a Sociohistorical Conception of Nationalism’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 44, no. 4 (2002): 770–799.
6 I build here on Kirsten Scheid’s argument about scouting and tourism as ritualised practices of localisation. Kirsten Scheid, ‘Painters, Picture-Makers, and Lebanon: Ambiguous Identities in an Unsettled State’ (PhD Dissertation, Princeton, Princeton University, 2005).
7 Chakrabarty.
8 See for example, Eric G. E. Zuelow, Making Ireland Irish: Tourism and National Identity since the Irish Civil War (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2009). Yajun Mo, Touring China. A History of Travel Culture, 1912–1949 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2021). On infrastructure development underpinning tourism see for example Sasha Pack, Tourism and Dictatorship: Europe’s Peaceful Invasion of Franco’s Spain (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006); Shelley Baranowski, Strength through Joy: Consumerism and Mass Tourism in the Third Reich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Mark Rice, Making Machu Picchu : The Politics of Tourism in Twentieth-Century Peru (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018).
9 Like the making of centres d’estivage, the S.E.T. was involved in developing the centres d’hivernage, including the construction of hotels, the building and maintenance of roads for the winter season, and the extension of electricity lines to remote mountainous regions. In order to retain focus, other dimensions of the association’s work such as the development of winter sports and the publication of tourist guidebooks are not discussed here. Future studies may highlight the seasonal dimension of tourism development in Lebanon more decidedly as well as the curation of a historical past in guidebooks. See Janina S. Santer, ‘Imagining Lebanon: Tourism and the Production of Space under French Mandate (1920–1939)’ (MA Thesis, American University of Beirut, 2019).
10 Carol Hakim, The Origins of the Lebanese National Idea, 1840–1920 (Berkley: University of California Press, 2013).
11 Fawwaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon (London: Pluto Press, 2007), 80.Thompson, Colonial Citizens, 42.
12 See Alphonse Joffre, Le Mandat de la France sur la Syrie et le Grand Liban (Lyon: Imprimerie Bascou, 1924), 82 83. Jean-David Mizrahi, La Genèse de l’État mandataire. Services des Renseignements et bandes armées en Syrie et au Liban dans les années 1920 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2003), 81–5.
13 Compare for example, Le Mandat de la France, 106. René de Fériet, L’application d’un mandat. La France puissance mandataire en Syrie et au Liban. Comment elle a compris son rôle (Paris: Jouve et Cie, 1926), 30, 65.
14 Members of Beirut’s bourgeoisie for example collaborated with mandate authorities in organising the Foire Exhibition in 1921. Haut-Commissariat de la République Française, La Syrie et le Liban en 1921. La Foire-Exposition de Beyrouth. Conférences. Liste des Récompenses (Paris: Emile Larose, 1922).
15 Zamir, The Formation of Greater Lebanon, 133.
16 Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon, 93. The representative council included thirty members, selected along confessional lines. For a complete list see Elie and George Gédéon, L’ Indicateur Syrien. Annuaire de la Syrie et du Liban, de la Palestine, et de l’Egpyte (Beirut: Imprimerie Gédéon, [1923]) 10, 155.
17 Carla Eddé, Beyrouth. Naissance d’une Capitale (1918–1924) (Paris: Sindbad, 2009). Raghid Al-Solh, Lebanon and Arabism. National Identity and State-Formation (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004). Kais Firro, Inventing Lebanon. Nationalism and the State under the Mandate (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002).
18 See for example Michel Van Leuwen, Emile Eddé (1884–1949): Aux sources de la république libanaise (Paris: Geuthner, 2018). Michelle Hartman, and Alessandro Olsaretti, ‘‘The First Boat and the First Oar’: Inventions of Lebanon in the Writings of Michel Chiha’, Radical History Review 86 (2003): 37–65. Asher Kaufman, Reviving Phoenicia. The Search for Identity in Lebanon (London: I.B.Tauris, 2004).
19 The pioneering studies on the subject are Andrea L. Stanton, ‘Locating Palestine’s Summer Residence: Mandate Tourism and National Identity’, Journal of Palestine Studies XLVII, no. 2 (Winter 2018): 44–62. Kirsten Scheid, ‘Painters, Picture-Makers, and Lebanon: Ambiguous Identities in an Unsettled State’ (PhD Dissertation, Princeton, Princeton University, 2005). Marwan Buheiry, Beirut’s Role in the Political Economy of the French Mandate 1919–1939 (Oxford: Center for Lebanese Studies, 1986). Samir Kassir, Histoire de Beyrouth (Paris: Fayard, 2003). Jasmin Daam, ‘Tourist Transformations. The Emergence of Nation-States in the Arab Eastern Mediterranean, 1920s–1930s’.
20 Leila Fawaz, Merchants and Migrants in Nineteenth-Century Beirut (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), 36. Paul Saba, ‘The creation of the Lebanese economy – economic growth in the nineteenth and early twentieth century’, in Essays on the Crisis in Lebanon, ed. Roger Owen (London: Ithaca Press, 1976), 14.
21 Roland Barthes, ‘Le ‘Guide Bleu’’, in Mythologies, ed. Roland Barthes (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1957), 113–17. Several guidebooks were published or commissioned by Ottoman officials, see for example [Th. Wiegand], Alte Denkmäler in Syrien, Palästina, und Westarabien (Berlin: Verlag von Georg Reimer, 1918). Raphael C. Cervati, Annuaire Orientale du Commerce (Constantinople: Cervati Frères & Cie, 1891). Nasralla Hani, Guide de l’entrepreneur Nasralla Hani de Beyrouth (Syrie). Entreprise de voyage pour le pays du Levant (Paris: Imprimerie Téqui, [1885]).
22 See for example, ‘Estivage et Tourisme dans les Etats du Levant’, Correspondance d’Orient, March 1932. Michel Chiha, ‘Problèmes de la villégiature’, Le Jour, Mai 1, 1935.
23 I use tourism in my analysis at times as an umbrella term, given that contemporary sources typically discuss tourism, estivage, and hivernage in a conjoint manner. However, I highlight distinctions between the leisure practices when relevant. I follow here the lead of theories of leisure, which typically define tourism as a term that subsumes various leisure practices.
24 Although a nuanced study on French mandate authorities’ efforts to promote tourism in colonial Lebanon and Syria remains to be written, several guidebooks, newspaper articles, and organised tours testify to colonial interest in tourism development.
25 For more on tourism development in the 1920s see Janina Santer, Nashʿat al-qiṭāʿ al-siyāḥī wa namūdhaj ‘lubnān swīsrā al-sharq’, Bidayat 28–9 (2020), 99–114. See Appendix Fig. 1 for a list of members involved in the different initiatives and associations.
26 CCA 0096, Statutes Société d’Encouragement au Tourisme, 1935.
27 For a more encompassing list of the members see Appendix, Figure A1.
28 Société d’Encouragement au Tourisme, Plan général pour le développement de la villégiature et du tourisme au Liban (Unknown, 1938).
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid., 17. Although directorship of state ministries was handed over to local civil servants in 1920, French advisors continued to oversee and ensure colonial control of the politics of the state throughout the mandate era. Compare Elizabeth Thompson, Colonial Citizens. Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 64.
31 Georges Vayssié, ‘La Commission de Tourisme. Une mauvaise plaisanterie’, La Syrie, December 16, 1931.
32 Michel Chiha, ‘Tourisme et Villégiature’, Le Jour, Mai 9, 1935. See as well Jasmin Daam’s book on tourism development in Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon at the time. Daam, ‘Tourist Transformations. The Emergence of Nation-States in the Arab Eastern Mediterranean, 1920s-1930s.’
33 Chiha, ‘Tourisme et Villégiature.’
34 Michel Chiha, ‘Initiatives Individuelles’, Le Jour, Mai 22, 1935.
35 Ibid.
36 For unknown reasons, the French High Commission requested the 50.000 francs to be restituted in 1937, to the chagrin of the S.E.T. Compare PAAS, Carton 27, 40962, Letter sent by M. Izzedine to Donna Maria Sursock, January 17, 1937. See also PAAS, Carton 27, 40968, M. Izzedine, Résumé des activités de la S.E.T. en 1937, February 1938.
37 The médaille de mérite was a colorful certificate in both French and Arabic, adorned with arabesques centering around the depiction of a cedar under the lettering République Libanaise. The original can be found in PAAS, Carton 27, 40779. PAAS, Carton 27, 40963, Laudation for Donna Maria Sursock by Dr. A. Gemayel, July 1937.
38 Chakrabarty, ‘Of Garbage, Modernity, and the Citizen’s Gaze.’
39 Fawwaz Traboulsi, Imagining Lebanon. A Critical Essay On the Thought Of Michel Chiha, Manuscript, 2000. Already in the mandate era, critiques of the direction towards a service-oriented economy drew critique. See Pierre Naccache, Un Autre Liban. Les Écrits d’Albert Naccache 1917–1951 (Paris: Geuthner, 2018).
40 ‘Pour la villégiature et le tourisme au Liban’, Revue du Liban, July 1935.
41 Ministère de l’économie nationale du gouvernement Libanais, Liban, Tourisme, Estivage, Sports d’Hiver, in collaboration with the S.E.T. (Cairo: Al-Hilal, no date). PAAS, Carton 27, 40968, M. Izzedine, Résumé des activités de la S.E.T. en 1937, February 1938.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid.
44 Ibid. Ministère de l’économie nationale du gouvernement Libanais, Liban, Tourisme, Estivage, Sports d’Hiver, in collaboration with the S.E.T. (Cairo: Al-Hilal, [1937–41]). See as well Société d’Encouragement au Tourisme, Plan général pour le développement.
45 PAAS, Carton 27, 40968, M. Izzedine, Résumé des activités de la S.E.T. en 1937, February 1938.
46 Philippe Bériel, Les Sports d’Hiver au Liban (Beirut : Imprimerie Catholique, 1942).
47 I build here on Kirsten Scheid’s argument that scouting provided a localising ritual in the interwar years. Kirsten Scheid, ‘Painters, Picture-Makers, and Lebanon: Ambiguous Identities in an Unsettled State’ (PhD Dissertation, Princeton, Princeton University, 2005).
48 Michel Chiha ‘Propagande extérieur et intérieur’, Le Jour, July 6, 1935.
49 PAAS, Carton 27, 40968, M. Izzedine, Résumé des activités de la S.E.T. en 1937, February 1938.
50 Michel Chiha, ‘La jeunesse Libanaise et les vacances. La reprise de contact avec la terre et l’action individuelle’, Le Jour, August 9, 1935.
51 Ibid.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid. See as well Joseph Leidy, ‘From Their Classes to the Masses Youth Volunteerism and Rural Welfare in Interwar Lebanon and Syria’, in Interwar Crossroads: Entangled Histories of the Middle Eastern and North Atlantic World between the World Wars, ed. Leon Julius Biela and Anna Bundt (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2022), 65–88. Scheid, ‘Painters, Picture-Makers, and Lebanon: Ambiguous Identities in an Unsettled State.’
54 Ibid.
55 Qānūn jamʿiyat aṣdaqāʾ al-ashjār (Jounieh, 1934). See Appendix Figure A1 for the overlap in membership.
56 CCA 0074, Amis des Arbres, Ilā ibnāʾ al-waṭan al-ḥabīb, man kānū wa ayna kānū, leaflet (Beirut: Al-Sabil, 1934). Membership in the association was for 1 lira per year, requiring recommendation by a members, and 10 lira for a membership for life. CCA 0074, Qānūn jamʿiyat aṣdaqāʾ al-ashjār (Jounieh, 1934).
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid.
59 CCA 0074, Amis des Arbres, Ilā ibnāʾ al-waṭan al-ḥabīb, leaflet (Beirut: Al-Sabil, 1934).
60 Société des Amis des Arbres, Société Des Amis Des Arbres. Rapport Du Dr. Amin Gemayel lu à l’Assemblée Générale Tenue Le 16 Juin 1938 (Harissa: Imprimerie du Saint Paul, 1938).
61 ‘La journée de l’arbre à Beyrouth’, Actualités, December 10, 1938. PAAS, Carton 27, 40967, Draft Laudation for Donna Maria Sursock, July 1937.
62 CCA 0074, Société des Amis des Arbres du Liban, Fête de l’arbre Bhamdoun, Brochure, Mai 5, 1935 (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1935).
63 Société d’Encouragement au Tourisme, Plan général pour le développement de la villégiature et du tourisme au Liban (n.p., 1938), 35. In the 1960s, members of the S.E.T. such as Donna Maria Sursock were involved in the organisation of the Baalbek festival.
64 Michel Chiha, ‘La villégiature au Liban et Hitler’, Le Jour, September 11, 1934.
65 Ibid.
66 Journal Officiel du Grand Liban, Débats Parlementaires, Chambre des Députés. Juin 20, 1922.
67 LNA, 1919–1943, Carton 2, ‘Intérieur, Centres d’Estivage’, 1926–1929. ‘Pour l’estivage’, La Syrie, April 6, 1932.
68 The criteria applied for classification remain unclear. LNA, 1919–1943, Carton 2, ‘Intérieur, Centres d’Estivage’, 1926–1929.
69 Journal Officiel de la République Libanaise, Débats Parlementaires, Chambre des Députés, March 20, 1928.
70 The V.M.L., for example, imported generators to equip hotels with electricity in 1923. Rapport Annuelle de la Société de Villégiature au Mont Liban pour l’année 1923 (Beirut: Imp. Jeanne d’Arc, [1923]), 14.
71 The municipality of Beirut powered streetlights since 1908. Basim A. Faris, Electric Power in Syria and Palestine (Beirut, American Press, 1936), 78, 82. For a more detailed account of the history of power plants in the territory under French mandate rule and Palestine see ibid.
72 ibid., 78. For parliamentary debates regarding the granting of concessions to centres d’estivage see, for example: Journal Officiel de la République Libanaise, Débats Parlementaires, Chambre des Députés, Mai 14, 1929. Journal Officiel de la République Libanaise, Débats Parlementaires, Chambre des Députés, Mai 22, 1930.
73 Journal Officiel de la République Libanaise, Débats Parlementaires, Chambre des Députés, April 23, 1929.
74 Faris, Electric Power in Syria and Palestine, 181. According to a list compiled by the French advisor for public works in 1936 out of the 38 villages listed, towns like Jounieh, Zahle, and the suburbs of Beirut subtracted, almost half were either listed as official centres d’estivage or featured in the colonial state’s tourist guidebooks in the early 1930s. J.A. Babikian, ‘Civilisation and Education in Syria and Lebanon. Historical Comparative and Critical Survey of the Civilisation and Various Educational Systems in the Several Syrian and Lebanese Territories’, (PhD diss, Columbia University, 1936), 57.
75 Compare Enzensberger, ‘A Theory of Tourism’, 133. Rapport Annuelle de la Société de Villégiature au Mont Liban pour l’année 1923 (Beirut: Imp. Jeanne d’Arc, [1923]), 14.
76 Ibid.
77 Jacques Tabet, Pour faire du Liban la Suisse du Levant. Aperçu sur les conditions politiques, économiques, et touristiques des deux pays (Paris: Imprimerie Ramlot, 1924).
78 Journal Officiel de la République Libanaise, Débats Parlementaires, Chambre des Députés, December 19, 1929. Journal Officiel de la République Libanaise, Débats Parlementaires, Chambre des Députés, April 18, 1930. Journal Officiel de la République Libanaise, Chambre des Députés, April 26, 1935.
79 [Haut-Commissariat], La Syrie et le Liban sous l’Occupation, 278–81. See as well advertisements in Guide Commercial Illustré des Pays du Levant sous mandat français 1935–1936, ed. J. Adjemian (unknown, [1934–1936]). Courtesy of Fadi Ghazzaoui.
80 Al-Bashir, October 9, 1934, in ‘La villeggiatura nel Libano nella scorsa estate’, Oriente Moderno, November 1934.
81 See for example Société de Villégiature au Mont Liban, Guide du Tourisme et de la Villégiature au Liban et en Syrie (Unknown, 1930).
82 Emile Hacho, ‘Un Programme pour le Tourisme VI’, L’Orient, April 18, 1925.
83 See for example LNA, Carton 78, 2332, ‘Fermant un café à Chtaura’, 1935.
84 La Syrie, August 6, 1927, in ‘Progetto di legge libanese sui giuochi d’azzardo e duo ritiro’, Oriente Moderno, September 1927. Décret N. 6042, December 24, 1929, in Receuil des Lois et Décrets du Gouvernment de la République Libanaise. Année 1929–1930, Volume III (Beirut: Imprimerie Ad-Dabbour, n.d.), 856–60.
85 [Haut-Commissariat], La Syrie et le Liban sous l’occupation et le mandat francais 1919–1927 (Nancy: Berger-Levrault, 1927), 279.
86 Journal Officiel de la République Libanaise, Débats Parlementaires, Chambre des Députés, December 6, 1927.
87 Journal Officiel de la République Libanaise, Débats Parlementaires, Chambre des Députés, December 6, 1927.
88 Al-Istiqlal, March 1, 1933 in ‘Aspirazioni degli Sciiti Libanesi’, Oriente Moderno, April 1933.
89 Ibid.
90 Manu Goswami, Producing India: From Colonial Economy to National Space (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 38.also Frederik Meiton, Electrical Palestine. Capital and Technology from Empire to Nation (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019).
91 Société d’Encouragement au Tourisme, Plan général pour le développement, 33.
92 Michel Chiha, ‘Le Tourisme difficile’, Le Jour, July 29, 1935.
93 PAAS, Carton 27, 40968, M. Izzedine, Résumé des activités de la S.E.T. en 1937, February 1938.
94 Société d’Encouragement au Tourisme, Plan général pour le développent de la villégiature et du tourisme au Liban (Unknown, 1938), 30.
95 PAAS, Carton 27, 40968, M. Izzedine, Résumé des travaux du bureau du comité de direction de la S.E.T. pendant la saison d’été, October 1937.
96 Ibid.
97 Ibid.
98 Société d’Encouragement au Tourisme, Plan général pour le développement, 31.
99 Ibid., 32.
100 Société des Amis des Arbres, Rapport Du Dr. Amin Gemayel Lu à l’Assemblée Générale Tenue Le 16 Juin 1938.
101 Chakrabarty, ‘Of Garbage, Modernity, and the Citizen’s Gaze.’
102 Journal Officiel de la République Libanaise, Débats Parlementaires, Chambre des Députés, December 29, 1929.
103 Société d’Encouragement au Tourisme, Plan général pour le développement, 7.
104 Ibid., 7.
105 CCA, Les Amis des Arbres, Programme, no date.
106 CCA, Société des Amis des Arbres du Liban, Fête de l’arbre Bhamdoun, Brochure, Mai 5, 1935.
107 CCA, Les Amis des Arbres, Programme, no date.
108 Société des Amis des Arbres, Rapport Du Dr. Amin Gemayel lu à l’Assemblée Générale Tenue Le 16 Juin 1938.
109 Ibid. PAAS, Carton 27, 40968, M. Izzedine, Résumé des activités de la S.E.T. en 1937, February 1938.
110 Ibid.
111 Société des Amis des Arbres, Rapport Du Dr. Amin Gemayel lu à l’Assemblée Générale Tenue Le 16 Juin 1938.
112 Journal Officiel de la République Libanaise, Débats Parlementaires, Chambre des Députés, December 11, 1935.
113 Eric G.E. Zuelow, ‘Foreword’, in Touring China. A History of Travel Culture, 1912–1949, by Yajun Mo (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2021), xxxi.
114 Zuelow, Making Ireland Irish: Tourism and National Identity since the Irish Civil War. Yajun Mo, Touring China. A History of Travel Culture, 1912–1949 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2021), 5.
115 Eric G.E. Zuelow, ‘The Necessity of Touring Beyond the Nation: An Introduction’, in Touring Beyond the Nation: A Transnational Approach to European Tourism History, ed. Eric G.E. Zuelow (Routledge, 2016), 1–16.
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Janina S. Santer
Janina S. Santer is a Ph.D. student and Richard Hofstadter Fellow in the History Department at Columbia University, researching the history of the Lebanese state in the 1940s-1950s. Before moving to New York, she completed a MA in Middle Eastern Studies at the American University of Beirut. Her work has been published in Arabic translation in Bidayat °28-29/2020 (Nashʿat al-qiṭāʿ al-siyāḥī wa namūdhaj ‘lubnān swīsrā al-sharq’). Her interests include the social and cultural history of modern Lebanon, and she is currently developing a public history project about Radio al-Sharq (1930s-1960s) in collaboration with UMAM Center for Documentation and Research.