216,400 foreign tourists visited Israel during April, the Central Bureau of Statistics reports, as the country's tourism industry begins the long, hard road to recovery. This figure compares with 413,000 in April 2019, before the Covid pandemic decimated international tourism.
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, and 168,900 in March. In total 522,400 foreign tourists entered Israel in the first four months of 2022.
In April 2022, 685,600 Israelis traveled abroad, the Central Bureau of Statistics reports, approaching the pre-Covid level of 798,700 in April 2019. The Passover holiday fell in April in both 2022 and 2019. In March and April 2022, 1.2 million Israelis traveled abroad compared with 1.4 million in 2019.
In 2019, Israelis made a record 9.2 million overseas trips but this figure fell to 1.5 million in 2020 and 3 million in 2021.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on May 8, 2022.
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