TOURISM : The Curious and the Frugal Flock to See Lebanon Remains : Peace brings a surge of visitors for the first time since 1975.

The Russians aren’t coming. But the French, South Africans, Japanese, Greeks and Colombians are. They’re all flocking to see what postwar Lebanon looks like.

Flights from around the globe are bringing in enthusiastic tourists for what is shaping up as the first decent tourist season since the civil war began here in 1975.

Nakhal Tours, one of three travel companies now operating in Beirut, runs trips to Jubayl, Baalbek and the Cedars of Lebanon several times a week. These and other excursions cost roughly $25 a person.

Why would anyone want to visit Lebanon?

Elie Nakhal answers swiftly: Why not, especially considering costs here? His weeklong, $250 package covers a visa, transfers to and from the airport, hotel, food and daily tours. Foreign travel agencies, he adds, are always on the lookout for new areas. They contact him. Tours to neighboring Syria, where agents work closely with Nakhal, now include side trips to Lebanon.

No Lebanon tour is in greater demand now than the jaunt to Baalbek. Not to worry, tour agents say, the pro-Iranian Hezbollah guerrillas there are held in check by ever-present Syrian troops, about 35,000 of which are deployed around the country.

Are tourists worried about security? No, Nakhal says, because anyone who worries about that doesn’t come here.

But worry is a two-way street. When a Lebanese named Bilal was entrusted with his boss’s Dutch friends--a couple and a single woman--he began to fret when they insisted on visiting Baalbek’s grand Roman temples, 55 miles from Beirut. Security being his chief concern, Bilal asked Syrian soldiers guarding the ruins if he could park inside the enclosure around the temples.

He slipped them a 10,000-pound Lebanese note (about $6). The money was accepted, reluctantly, by the soldiers, who asked why, if he was bringing foreigners, he was not offering them the prized foreign hard currency.

Time slipped by, and Bilal realized he would never get his charges back to Beirut by 4:30 p.m., the deadline set by his boss. Phones don’t work between Baalbek and Beirut, so the best the hapless guide could do was hit the gas. By the time he raced back, his boss was shaking with fear, afraid the guide and his tourists had been kidnaped.

At the National Council of Tourism, officials have their own concerns, said Nasser Safieddine, its director general. He said his staff’s average age is about 50; his crew badly needs to be rejuvenated and energized.

And though Lebanon is beginning to attract visitors, real tourism to Safieddine means an influx of Gulf Arabs. Before the war, their average stay was a whopping 42 nights; their wealth poured into Lebanon and made tourism 20% of the national income.

To be sure, there are reasons for optimism about tourism’s return here.

Downtown Beirut is a big draw. Visitors are curious about the damage but don’t want to stay long--just long enough to say they saw it, Nakhal says.

And a guide training program is now in full swing. Forty Lebanese in their early 20s are participating in the program, says Dr. Helga Seeden, an archeology professor at the American University of Beirut. Seeden lectures about the ruins at Baalbek and took a class of guides there in late May. For many of the guides, who were 5 years old when the war broke out, it was a first visit.

The hottest souvenirs are sold by the Hezbollah, which has set up stands inside the ancient tunnel that serves as the exit from Baalbek’s ruins. Hezbollah offers pictures of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran; there are also Korans and tea-rose perfume--made in America, the package says.

One young tourist--he said he was an Oklahoman, apparently visiting with his dad in violation of a State Department ban on Americans traveling here--glanced at the postcard-size photos of Khomeini and promptly bought the full set of 10. He called them “Shiite trading cards.”