The number of tourists coming from abroad to Israel reached an all-time record of 350,000 in April, up 40% from April last year, the Ministry of Tourism reports. Since the start of the year 1.09 million tourists have entered Israel, up 26% from 850,000 in the first four month of last year.
The sharp rise in tourism comes despite the significant strengthening of the shekel, which makes Israel an especially expensive destination. In the first four months of the year, incoming tourism earned the Israeli economy an estimated NIS 6 billion so far in 2017.
In 2016, nearly 3 million tourists came to Israel, up 3.6% from 2015.
Most tourists enter Israel by air. So for example in April, 309,000 tourists came by air and only 40,000 by land or sea - 34,000 from Jordan and 6,000 from Egypt.
Ministry of Tourism officials hope that Israel can surpass the record number of 3.54 million tourists to Israel in 2013.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 9, 2017
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2017