by amk112 | Nov 21, 2025 | Dashboard, Visualization
The Surprising Fact
Around one out of every five tourism facilities in Lebanon is concentrated in just two governorates: Baabda and Akkar.
When I first mapped the number of hotels, restaurants, cafés, and guest houses across all regions, this pattern immediately stood out.
Lebanon is often celebrated for its geographic diversity – mountains, coast, valleys, and historic towns – yet the distribution of tourism infrastructure reveals a different story, one marked by clear regional imbalance. Even more interesting, Baabda and Akkar are not traditionally seen as the country’s top touristic destinations, which makes this concentration even more surprising.
Setting the Context
Tourism has long been one of Lebanon’s essential economic pillars. It creates jobs, sustains small and medium businesses, and brings much-needed spending into local communities.
Because of this, understanding where tourism infrastructure is located is not just a mapping exercise. It helps us see deeper patterns in development, accessibility, and how opportunities are distributed across the country. Regions with more facilities attract more visitors, investment, and employment, while others risk being left behind.
Introducing the Visualization
To explore this issue, I developed the visualization shown below. It ranks Lebanese governorates by their total number of tourism facilities, combining four types of establishments:
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Hotels
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Restaurants
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Cafés
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Guest houses
The data comes from the Lebanon Tourism Dataset 2024 and reflects the most recent nationwide mapping of tourism infrastructure. The chart uses color to highlight the top two regions, with the remaining governorates shown in muted tones to provide context without overwhelming the viewer.
The Core Insight
The chart makes one fact impossible to ignore:
Baabda and Akkar together host 1,249 tourism facilities – about 20% of all facilities in Lebanon.
Baabda leads with 631 facilities, followed closely by Akkar with 618. No other governorate reaches these levels. The third-highest region, Matn, drops to 383 facilities, and the numbers continue to decrease as we move toward more peripheral areas such as Hasbaya, Marjeyoun, and the Bekaa.
This reveals a strong centralization of tourism infrastructure in just a few locations, while many other regions operate with a significantly smaller base of hotels, restaurants, cafés, and guest houses.
Why This Matters
This concentration has several important implications:
1. Limited Regional Economic Spillover
Tourism-driven income is more likely to stay within a small set of governorates. Regions with fewer facilities miss out on employment opportunities, business growth, and investment linked to tourism.
2. Uneven Visitor Experience
Visitors may repeatedly encounter the same areas, such as Baabda and Akkar, instead of discovering Lebanon’s full variety of landscapes, heritage sites, and rural communities. This can reinforce the perception that tourism is “meant” for certain regions only.
3. Underused Infrastructure Potential
Areas like Tyre, Baalbek-Hermel, Batroun, and Nabatieh have strong cultural, historical, and natural assets, yet they remain comparatively underserved in terms of tourism infrastructure. The gap between their potential and current facility levels represents a missed opportunity.
A Deeper Imbalance
Looking at the totals by group of regions makes this imbalance even clearer:
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Top 2 governorates (Baabda & Akkar):
1,249 facilities – about 20% of the national total
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Next 3 governorates combined:
1,096 facilities – around 18%
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Remaining 20+ governorates combined:
3,801 facilities – about 62%
Most individual governorates therefore hold less than 5% of the country’s tourism infrastructure. This suggests long-standing gaps in how tourism investments and services have been distributed geographically.
An Opportunity Hidden in the Data
While these patterns highlight inequality, they also point to a clear opportunity.
If even a modest share of new tourism projects, guest houses, or hospitality investments were directed toward underrepresented regions, Lebanon could unlock:
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More balanced economic development
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New, locally anchored jobs
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Stronger domestic tourism flows
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A richer and more diverse visitor experience
Regions such as Zgharta, Batroun, Tyre, and the Bekaa already show emerging clusters of facilities. With targeted planning and support, they could become anchors for broader regional tourism strategies.
Final Takeaway
Understanding where tourism infrastructure currently exists – and where it is missing – is essential for designing a more inclusive tourism future for Lebanon.
The data tells a clear and actionable story:
Lebanon’s tourism future depends on looking beyond a small set of concentrated governorates and deliberately investing across the country’s full geography.
By doing so, tourism can shift from being a localized advantage to a national engine for development and shared prosperity.
by cvs02 | Nov 21, 2025 | Dashboard, Uncategorized, Visualization
Teta Salma lives in a small village in the Hermel District. The nearest clinic is far from her home and opens on an unpredictable schedule, so routine tests are rarely part of her life. She often feels tired but assumes it is simply age catching up with her. During a visit to her daughter in Mount Lebanon, she took her to a nearby medical center for a simple checkup. That day she learned she had diabetes. The condition had been part of her life for years. It had only been discovered because she finally had access.
Her experience reflects something that appears across Lebanon when we look at the data. Using the Health Status 2023 and Health Resources 2023 datasets from PKGCube, I compared reported chronic disease cases with the number of healthcare facilities available in each governorate and district. I combined hypertension, cardiovascular disease and diabetes into one chronic disease measure. I then compared these counts with the number of care centers and first aid centers in each region:
The visualization revealed a clear pattern: Regions with stronger reach and more places to get a routine check reported higher counts of chronic disease. Akkar stands out with 390 chronic disease cases and 126 healthcare facilities. Mount Lebanon and Baalbek Hermel show a similar alignment. Areas with limited reach, such as Hermel or the Western Beqaa, showed much lower numbers.
These lower numbers do not necessarily reflect lower illness. They reflect reduced visibility. When people cannot reach a clinic easily, fewer conditions are recorded and many remain unnoticed until symptoms become harder to ignore.
To understand how better reach affects health data, I looked at the experience of Thailand. The country expanded primary care and community screening through its Universal Health Coverage program. Once routine checks became easier to access, more cases of hypertension and diabetes were identified, especially in rural areas. Detection of hypertension increased from 48.9 percent in 2016 to 53.3 percent in 2019, and diabetes detection rose from 67.4 percent to 74.7 percent during the same period. These changes showed how wider access can reveal conditions that were present long before.
This is similar to what we see in Lebanon. When people have access, more of the country’s true chronic disease burden becomes visible. When access is limited, the data looks lighter than reality.
A practical next step for Lebanon is to expand routine screening in districts with fewer facilities. Mobile clinics, community testing days and partnerships with universities or NGOs can bring basic checks closer to the communities that need them. Improved digital record systems can also help track early diagnoses more accurately. Monitoring places like Hermel, Bsharri or the Western Beqaa can show if these efforts are working.
Healthcare access shapes what we know about people’s health. Strengthening that access gives families the chance to understand their conditions earlier and manage them with clarity. It also brings us back to people like Teta Salma. Her diabetes did not begin the day she was screened. It became visible because she finally reached a place where someone could help her.
Supporting more communities in this way can bring hidden conditions to light and build healthier lives across Lebanon.
by jje23 | Nov 21, 2025 | Dashboard, Visualization
If you grew up in Lebanon, you’ve probably heard someone say: “If this illness happened in Beirut, things would’ve been easier.”
I’ve heard it from relatives and friends who had to drive for hours for a simple check-up.
Healthcare in Lebanon has never felt equal, but I always wondered: Is this just a feeling, or is the data telling the same story?
To explore this, I combined two national datasets:
One mapping where chronic diseases and special needs appear across Lebanese towns, and another showing where healthcare facilities are actually located.
- These visuals show that rural regions, especially Akkar, Baalbeck-Hermel, and the North, have the highest share of towns reporting chronic diseases, confirming that Lebanon’s heaviest health burdens fall on its most underserved areas.
- We can see that most healthcare facilities are concentrated in urban Mount Lebanon, creating an imbalance where the regions with the greatest health needs have the least medical infrastructure.
To understand this imbalance more clearly, I looked at disease prevalence side-by-side with the availability of the healthcare resources that matter most for each condition.
The question was simple: when a disease appears in a town, is the right type of care actually nearby?
Therefore, I paired each condition with the resource most relevant to its management, based on clinical practice and literature:
• Hypertension → hospitals
• Diabetes → clinics
• Cardiovascular disease → pharmacies or medical centers
• Special needs → dedicated care centers
Once I paired each condition with the care it requires, a clear imbalance appeared:
• The regions most affected by disease had the least access to the services they needed.
• The regions with lighter disease presence had the strongest concentration of facilities.
A clear example is hypertension vs hospitals:
•Akkar, Baalbeck-Hermel, the North, and parts of the South showed high hypertension presence, yet had some of the lowest hospital capacity.
•Meanwhile, Mount Lebanon, with lower prevalence, had more hospitals than all of them combined.
This is more than an imbalance; it’s an access gap that shapes real health outcomes.
So, what does Lebanon need?
- Targeted decentralization, not more hospitals everywhere.
Rural regions don’t need giant new medical complexes.
They need strategically placed clinics, chronic-disease screening units, hypertension/diabetes corners, and even mobile health programs.
- Allocate resources based on data
Mount Lebanon already has the largest medical footprint.
But Akkar, Baalbeck-Hermel, the North, and the South need urgent investment.
- Build capacity where it matters.
Even a single medical center, diagnostic pharmacy, or special-needs support unit can shift accessibility for hundreds of towns.
- Make data-driven planning routine.
Lebanon produces far more data than most people realize, we just don’t use it.
Dashboards and visual can guide ministries, municipalities, NGOs, donors, and health planners to invest where impact will be highest.
Lebanon doesn’t suffer from a lack of medical knowledge, it suffers from a lack of medical access. And the good news is that access can change.
If resources finally start following the data, rural Lebanon won’t stay medically invisible. The map is clear, now the planning needs to follow.
by gji02 | Nov 20, 2025 | Dashboard, Uncategorized, Visualization
A personal journey into the places we love, the beauty we overlook, and the opportunities we’re losing
Lebanon is a country overflowing with natural beauty, history, culture, and authentic local experiences. A place where even the smallest town holds a story, a scent of zaatar from a bakery at dawn, the echo of church bells or the call to prayer drifting across the valley, the laughter of families gathered near rivers, old souks, and mountain trails.
These moments stay with us.
They shape who we are.
They remind us of a Lebanon that feels peaceful, grounding, and full of life.
But beneath the familiar hotspots we all rush to, there is a deeper truth, a truth rarely captured in brochures or tourism campaigns.
Many Lebanese towns already hold everything a thriving tourism ecosystem needs… except support.
Growing up here, these towns shaped my identity. Their landscapes, their people, their rhythm, all felt alive.
Yet as I grew older, I began to notice something painful:
The towns we love are often the ones left behind.
Where Beauty Lives but Support Does Not
Before looking at individual towns, I started from a broader question:
Do the regions of Lebanon with high tourism appeal receive the infrastructure support they need?
As Tourism Index shows how naturally attractive or culturally rich a region is, the Infrastructure Capacity refers to the services that allow tourism to function (cafés, restaurants, accommodations, facilities, etc.)
Some towns rise high on the “Tourism Index”, but fall flat on actual investments.
While many regions score well on tourism attractiveness, their infrastructure such roads, accommodations, public spaces, services, and tourism support systems lag far behind, making it difficult for visitors to stay, explore, and contribute economically.
This mismatch isn’t just a technical imbalance. It reflects a deeper, more emotional reality.
Some towns are seen, while others are not.
Some receive attention, while others remain forgotten.
And the ones left behind are not lacking in beauty, they are lacking in support.
We already see what happens when beauty is supported. Regions like Baabda, Akkar, and Matn, all scoring high on both Tourism Index and infrastructure, thrive simply because they were given the basics. They are the proof of what every overlooked town could become with just a little support.
Beauty and heritage exist everywhere in Lebanon, yet so much of it continues to wait quietly for the support it deserves.
Each bar represents a town that has natural beauty or cultural heritage, but zero visible tourism development. These are places with stories, landscapes, and identity waiting silently for investment.
Over the years some Lebanese towns have received tourism-related initiatives.
But when we look only at towns that already have attractions, a striking pattern appears:
Most of them, despite having natural, cultural, or historical treasures , received no initiatives at all.
No projects;
No funding;
No development;
No strategy;
Just silence.
The Hardest Truth: Even the Most Attractive Towns Receive Nothing
Some may argue:
“Maybe those towns don’t have attractions.”
But when we look closely at towns that already possess attractions, the painful truth becomes impossible to deny.
Potential without support becomes a burden. Towns that could thrive remain stuck. Communities that could flourish stay stagnant. And the tourism narrative becomes narrower, excluding places that rightfully belong in it.
The towns most ready to be activated are often the ones completely overlooked.
3 out of 4 received no support. None.
This is not a coincidence.
It is not a gap.
It is a systemic misalignment between where potential exists and where initiatives are delivered.
These are towns where: visitors already come, landscapes already impress, heritage already exists, infrastructure is partially there. Yet development never reaches them.
Looking at the Data as a Lebanese Citizen
When I step back, not as a student, not as an analyst, but as someone who grew up here, the message becomes clear:
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We have so much beauty, but we overlook it.
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We have so much potential, but we do not unlock it.
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We have communities waiting, but no one comes.
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We have foundations ready, but not activated.
The problem is not the towns.
The problem is the absence of action.
Every chart you saw above points to the same conclusion:
Lebanon’s opportunity is not in discovering new places, it is in believing in the ones we already have.
Imagine what would happen if:
Aley’s cafés received marketing and infrastructure upgrades, Akkar’s hiking trails were formalized Byblos’ surrounding villages received preservation grants Hasbaya’s guesthouses were connected to tourism.
platforms, Baalbek-Hermel’s rural attractions were promoted, Marjeyoun’s landscapes were protected and activated…
These are not dreams. These are realistic, steps, and now we know exactly where we should begin.
Lebanon does not need to invent new beauty.
It simply needs to believe in the beauty it already has.
The potential is real.
The foundations exist.
The opportunity is now.
What we need… is action.
Let’s stop waiting for “better times.”
by tmt19 | Nov 20, 2025 | Dashboard, Team Project, Visualization
Launching La Table is more than opening a restaurant, it’s making a meaningful, long-term investment. With limited savings, choosing the wrong location would turn a dream into a risk. To avoid guessing, I turned to data.
The goal was simple: find a town in Lebanon where visitors (locals and tourists) already show strong interest, yet the restaurant market remains underserved.
Lebanon’s tourism and investment patterns often move in opposite directions. Some towns attract visitors but receive no development, while others receive projects despite having little demand.
For a new restaurant, this imbalance makes it difficult to know where genuine opportunity lies. I needed a location that is not saturated or speculative, but strategically overlooked.
Step 1: Scanning the Chaos for Opportunity – Lebanon as a whole
The national view shows two categories:
High-tourism towns with no initiatives (Blue): attractive but saturated with existing restaurants.
Funded towns with low tourism (Orange): received investments but struggle with attracting visitors.
We’re looking for a true blue diamond: a high-potential (human intuition), high-traffic location (tourism index), with unserved demand (number of restaurants, 0 project initiated).
Step 2: The first zoom – Targeting Zgharta
We must narrow the focus from the whole country to a high-potential region. We start by targeting the beautiful Zgharta District.
Safe option: a district away from saturation (low competition) yet rich in natural beauty and tourism interest (mid to high). It becomes the logical next step for deeper exploration.
(Action for Viewer: Please use the District filter and select Zgharta District.)
Step 3: The second zoom – Finding the Restaurant Gap
One town rises above the rest:
Beit Obeid, Zgharta District
- High tourism demand (index: 9).
- Low supply: few restaurants exist (1 restaurant), minimal competition.
- No recent initiatives, meaning the opportunity remains untouched.
Visitors are already coming, but the market has not responded. This is exactly the type of gap a new restaurant should fill.
In Beit Obeid, high demand, low competition, and authentic natural beauty come together, making it a place where La Table can truly belong and elevate the town’s charm. By moving from a national overview to a focused district analysis, the data revealed a location where potential and opportunity meet.
But beyond numbers, choosing Beit Obeid reflects vision, intuition, and respect for place.
Overall view:
by hrc00 | Nov 18, 2025 | Dashboard
UN 2030 Agenda ensures sustainable health improvements worldwide and also serves as a measure of overall health system performance. One of UN goals is to support SDG 3.1 which aim to reduce the global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100 000 live births.
For decades, Canada has been known for its world-class healthcare system. But when we visualize the Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR), the number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births leads to a surprising trend emerges. Instead of declining, maternal deaths have risen steadily over the past twenty years, even before COVID-19 struck.
The time series reveals a striking pattern:
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In 2000, Canada recorded its lowest MMR.
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By 2020, the ratio had climbed to 16.65, before slightly falling to 13.58 in 2021.
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This spike coincides with pandemic-related healthcare disruptions, yet the broader upward trend began long before COVID-19.
The broader upward trend points to more systemic shifts and several underlying factors may help explain this pattern. First, enhancements in data systems and maternal health surveillance (particularly after 2010) likely improved the accuracy of maternal death classification, leading to more comprehensive reporting. Second, demographically Canadian women are increasingly delaying childbirth and advanced maternal age (35 and above) is associated with greater likelihood of complications such as hypertension, gestational diabetes, and cesarean-related risks. Third, the rising prevalence of obesity among women of reproductive age has introduced additional obstetric challenges. Together, these factors suggest that even in resource-rich contexts, evolving demographic and health trends can drive higher maternal risk, underscoring the need for proactive, data-informed maternal care strategies.
When visualized globally, Canada’s upward trend contrasts with the steady declines in many developing countries. The gap reminds us that wealth alone does not guarantee maternal safety, policy vigilance and data-informed care do.
Despite technological and medical advances, Canada’s rising maternal mortality highlights a critical truth: progress in healthcare is not linear. Data-driven vigilance, continuous system evaluation, and addressing social determinants of health are essential to ensure that every mother’s life counts.
