Tourism to Israel up 24% in 2017
As a result of the increase in tourism and the growing demand for overnight accommodation, Israel is working to encourage entrepreneurship in the market.
This year has seen growth of tens of percentage points in the number of entrepreneurs requesting grants, in particular to build budget accommodation. In 2015, the ministry received requests to build 2,895 hotel rooms (of which 625 were for budget accommodation), whereas in 2017, this jumped to 5,245 rooms (1,781 budget accommodation).
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, 253,800 tourist entries were recorded in August 2017, about 20% more than August 2016. In the eight months January-August 2017, 2.3 million tourist entries were recorded, 24% increase on the same period last year.
August 2017
There was a 20% increase in tourist entries in August 2017 as compared to August 2016 and 9% increase on August 2015. 231,800 tourist entries were by air, an increase of 19% on August 2016 and 9% on August 2015. 21,900 tourists arrived via the land crossings, of whom 18,800 came via Jordan and about 3,100 via Egypt. 21,200 arrived as day visitors in August, 125% increase on the 9,400 who came in August 2016 and 32% less than in 2015.
January-August 2017
In January-August 2017, about 2.3 million tourist entries were recorded, an increase of 24% on the same period in 2016 (1.8 million) and 20.4% more than in 2015. Since the beginning of the year, tourism has injected $3.4 billion into Israeli economy.
