All the news about Israeli tourism

There was a 20 percent fall in the number of incoming tourists to Israel during the first half of 2009, compared to the same period last year.  This was the report released by the Ministry of Tourism. Minister Misezhnikov: “We need urgently to resolve the aviation dispute with Russia, which could result in the collapse of incoming tourism from Russia and the loss of hundreds of millions of shekels in revenue per year.”

The fall in incoming tourism to Israel continues.  During the first half of the year, 1.2 million tourists arrived in Israel, a fall of 20 percent compared to the corresponding period last year.  More than a million were regular tourists (down by 18 percent) while there were 133,500 day visitors (a fall of 35 percent on last year).

Based on the data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, during June alone, a total of 208,000 tourists visited Israel; this is a 13 percent fall on last June.  The Ministry of Tourism hopes that the increase in the marketing budget by some 500 million shekels for the next two years and the cancellation of plans to introduce VAT on tourist services will help to boost the tourism industry to handle the effects of the economic crisis.

With the aim of resolving the aviation crisis with Russia – the second largest source of tourism to Israel – the Minister of Tourism met with Yisrael Katz, the Minister of Transport, in order to find ways of solving the problem. At this stage the Russian aviation authority is refusing to preserve the principle of reciprocity in allowing Israeli airlines from operating flights to Rostov, Sochi and Krasnodar in southern Russia.

This position, in the opinion of the Ministry of Tourism, is capable of resulting in the cancellation of flights on other routes between Russia and Israel, the damage to incoming tourism and the loss of revenue estimated at hundreds of millions of shekels in tourism this year.  Sun d’Or announced their decision to cancel their planned flights to these cities until the end of the month.

Minister Misezhnikov is expected to discuss the issue with his Russian counterpart, Minister of Tourism, Sport and Youth Policy, Vitaly Mutko, with whom he met three weeks ago during his visit to Russia. Minister Misezhnikov during his discussions, will stress the urgency and importance of the matter and the fear that the situation could lead to a severe aviation and tourism crisis between the countries and that it was vital that they work together to resolve the problem as soon as possible.