252,300 overseas visitors came to Israel in June 2022, compared with 384,000 in June 2019, before the Covid pandemic, the Central Bureau of Statistics reports. Only 1 million tourists visited Israel in the first half of the year.
The number of visitors to Israel in June was down from May 2022, when 262,700 visitors entered the country, although May is traditionally a more popular month for tourists to visit Israel than June, with 465,700 visitors entering the country in May 2019.
In all of 2021 only 402,300 tourists visited Israel, while 887,100 tourists came in 2020 after a record year in 2019 when 4.5 million foreign tourists came to Israel. The country was closed to foreign tourists from mid-March 2020, except for visitors with special permission to enter, due to the Covid pandemic, re-opening briefly in November 2021, before closing again in December 2021 due to the spread of the Omicron variant.
Israel reopened to fully-vaccinated foreign tourists on January 9, 2022 and to all foreign tourists on March 1. In January 46,700 visitors entered Israel, 90,400 in February, 168,900 in March, 216,400 in April and 262,700 in May. In total 1.037 million foreign tourists entered Israel in the first six months of 2022.
Meanwhile, the number of Israelis travelling abroad has almost reached pre-Covid levels. In June 2022, 766,700 Israelis traveled abroad compared with 837,400 in June 2019.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on July 7, 2022.
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