All the news about Israeli tourism

Rafi Ferber, Vice President of the Hotels Association: “a visit and stay in Israel is becoming more expensive for the tourist who pays in dollars and this is exactly at a time of world recession. We feel the dollar is like a merry-go-round, in these conditions it is impossible to plan long term exports and help the economy to prosper.”

The management of the Israel Hotels Associations came out with an attack against the Bank of Israel and the Treasury, claiming that they are abandoning export industries because of unreasonable exchange rates, resulting in damage to revenues totaling upwards of 300 million shekels in the field in tourism.

The collapse of the dollar harms tourism”, accused Rafi Ferber, Vice President of the Hotels Association, “like all of the Israeli export industries, tourism is also struggling to preserve its capability to compete in the world markets, unlike other industries, that are regrettably forced to transfer production lines overseas in order to preserve their ability to compete, the production line for the tourist industry cannot be transferred overseas.

According to Ferber, in terms of foreign exchange, tourist services in Israel are more expensive and the country is not defending itself and its exporters from different currency speculators.

In fact, claims Ferber, in recent weeks the governor of the Bank of Israel abandoned his support of the dollar, resulting in bankruptcy for those in the export industries and as a result of the erosion of dollar exchange rate, it will lessen any increase in incoming tourism to Israel and those tourists who are already coming will stay for a shorter period in order to economize.

Economists from the Hotels Association in Israel have calculated that activity based on an exchange rate of 3.8 shekels to the dollar, show a loss of about 300,000 potential incoming tourists to Israel, this equates to a loss of revenue totaling some 1.7 billion shekels to the economy.

In addition to the loss of income from potential tourism, the erosion from a rate of 4.2 shekels to the dollar to 3.8 shekels to the dollar also causes a loss in tourism revenue by an amount of some 1.2 billion shekels.