All the news about Israeli tourism

The economic department of the Israel Hotel Association reported that 3,000 permanent hotel workers and an additional 500 manpower workers lost their jobs in the first quarter of the year.  Shmuel Zuriel:  “We estimate that in the first quarter of 2009, the number of job dismissals in the tourist industry will total about 9,000 workers.”

In light of the report from the Central Bureau of Statistics of a 12 percent fall in the number of permanent hotel workers (excluding workers from manpower organizations) during the first quarter of 2009; the Israel Hotel Association reported that a significant number of permanent workers were dismissed from hotels in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and in Eilat.  With the exception of Eilat, these are areas that have all suffered a severe downturn in incoming tourism, since the military operation in Gaza and as a result of the worldwide economic recession.

Based on the report from the Israel Hotel Association, during the first quarter of the year hotels employed 21,800 permanent workers.  Overall the total number of people employed in hotels in Q1 2009 was 25,500 including both permanent workers and those with manpower organizations.

According to Shmuel Zuriel, director general of the Israel Hotel Association, problems in the tourism indirectly affect others branches of the economy; even though the damage is often difficult to assess. For example companies supplying services and other products to hotels, such as the food, detergents among others.  In the estimation of the hotel association, the trend for further job dismissals in the second quarter of the year (April until June) has continued and if anything is becoming worse.

Zuriel added that despite the pressure on hoteliers since the beginning of the crisis, the unpaid leave agreement has not been activated. The argument is that this agreement can prevent many of the current dismissals.

“For now we are calling on the government to declare a crisis in the tourism industry.  At present it’s necessary to invest in marketing Israel to the world and certainly not damage incoming tourism by removing the VAT exemption on tourists, such as the Treasury is trying to impose in the Economic Arrangements Law.  This is something that will completely destroy the tourism industry.”