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Harley Davidson has hit some hard times. The company just reported an 84% slide in 3rd quarter profits. So this American icon is looking to wealthy customers overseas to expand its market. Places like the Middle East. Earlier this month, more than 200 Harley bikers came together in Lebanon for one of the biggest motorcycle tours the region has ever seen. Ben Gilbert reports from Beirut. (photo: Ben Gilbert)
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MARCO WERMAN: Harley Davidson has hit some hard times. The motorcycle maker just reported an 84 percent slide in third quarter profits. So this American cultural icon is looking to wealthy customers overseas to expand its market in places like China, India, and perhaps the Middle East. Earlier this month more than 200 Harley riders came together in Lebanon for one of the biggest motorcycle tours the region has ever seen. Ben Gilbert reports from Beirut.
[SOUND OF HARLEY]
BEN GILBERT: This scene could be anywhere, USA but it’s actually the highway between Beirut and Damascus. A motorcycle cop has stopped traffic so more than 250 Harley riders can make a turn. The riders wear flags and leather jackets showing their home countries. Saudi Arabia, Syria, Kuwait, Qatar – just about every country in the Arabic speaking world is represented here.
[MUSIC AND SOUNDS OF ENGINES REVVING]
INDJI GHATTAS: We rode all the way from Egypt.
GILBERT: Indji Ghattas is dressed in tight jeans and a black tank top. She’s one of 17nriders who made the thousand-mile trip from Egypt to Beirut for this – the first official Harley Tour of Lebanon.
GHATTAS: We had a great time. [INDISCERNIBLE] is fun no matter where you’re riding. As long as you’re on a Harley it’s fun.
GILBERT: Ghattas was also one of only three women on the three-day tour which ended here in downtown Beirut. For a region not exactly known for its love of the US the scene was steeped in American motorcycle culture.
[MUSIC]
A country band dressed in cowboy hats and boots took the stage to play covers of Lynyrd Skynard’s Sweet Home Alabama. Bikers in leather jackets, heavy boots, and with Harley tattoos revved their engines clouding the stage with a haze of blue exhaust. Most of the riders are like Lebanese graphic designer Hani Bayoun – over 40 years old. Bayoun bought his Harley Road King and accessories last year while his wife was out of town. She and other family members accused him of having a mid-life crisis.
HANI BAYOUN: The picture they know about the bikers is you know guys with tattoos and with ear piercing and something like that.
GILBERT: Dealers here say there are around 4,000 Harley owners in the Arab world and most are like Bayoun – highly educated, middle-aged male professionals with disposable income.
[SOUND OF DRILL]
GILBERT: This is Biker’s Inc., a motorcycle shop that will soon become the first officially licensed Harley dealership in Lebanon. Marwan Tarraf opened the shop in 2007. He says he sells around 60 to 70 bikes per year for about $15,000 a piece. He estimates there are some 600 Harley owners in Lebanon’s population and many of them have embraced the attitude, culture, and dress associated with this quintessentially American brand.
MARWAN TARRAF: It is definitely an American icon. But Harley as a company expanded its markets and they reached the Middle East like 10, 15 years ago where they found a new emerging market and people love the brand here.
GILBERT: Tarraf hopes to add more customers in the future. He points out that although only 15 percent of Harley Davidson’s $5 billion in annual revenues comes from outside the US, he says the all-American corporation is coming to see global sales, including those in the Middle East, as its future. For The World I’m Ben Gilbert in Beirut.
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