All the news about Israeli tourism

A group of 630 pilgrims from North America, Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland arrived in Israel this week on board a cruise ship.  This is the first such arrival since cruises to the Holy Land were stopped with the outbreak of the Intifada in the year 2000.

The cruise ship arrived at the northern port city of Haifa, where the pilgrims were taken on a tour of the Christian sites around the Sea of Galilee, Nazareth and Haifa.  The next day the cruise ship docked at the southern port of Ashdod, from where the pilgrims were taken on tours of the holy sites of Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

It is thanks to the initiative of the Ministry of Tourism that Israel has been added back as a destination of Eastern Mediterranean Holy Land cruises.  Data from the ministry shows that in 2007 there were 25,000 tourist arrivals on cruise ships and last year this number rose to more than 40,000.

The Ministry of Tourism commented that in order to ensure that cruise ship passengers gained maximum value from their limited stay in Israel; there was full cooperation between the Israeli Police, the Ministry of Interior and the Israeli Ports Authority during the entry process into Israel.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Tourism commented that with start of the cruise season in March and April, the Ministry would be working with foreign wholesale travel agents in an attempt to increase tourism to Israel via the sea.