Israel sees a record number of tourists in the first half of this year

Published on : Wednesday, July 11, 2018

In the first half of this year, Israel saw a record number of tourists, and this brought in billions of dollars of revenue into the Israeli economy.

According to the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, from January to June 2018, about 2.1 million tourist entries were recorded. This marked an increase of 19 percent over the same period in 2017, and 26 percent more than in 2016. Tourism has injected more than NIS 12 billion ($3.3 billion) into the Israeli economy since the beginning of this year. Revenue from tourism in June reached about NIS 1.66 billion ($457 billion).

Israeli Tourism Minister Yariv Levin said in a statement, “The marketing efforts and activities that we are spearheading in the ministry are leading us to new records, as, for the first time, we have crossed the 2 million threshold for tourist entries over the course of half a year. I am pleased to see that the first half of the year has borne the fruit of our intensive marketing endeavors and activities around the world.”

Levin said that he predicts the second half of the year to continue with record statistics as Israel sees an increase in the number of flights from Europe to the southern resort city of Eilat.