The Dead Sea area will be included on the tourism national priority map, providing further incentives to restore the area’s tourism industry and overall development, the Knesset Finance committee decided on Monday.
“Today, Israel has placed the Dead Sea in its rightful place on the national priorities map,” Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov said in a press release. The ministry is working to approve the construction of some 2,750 hotel rooms in the Dead Sea area within the next three years, he added.
The government will encourage entrepreneurs, through targeted grants of up to about 20% of total investment, to build hotels, and allocated grants of up to about 10% of the construction of tourist attractions.
The Dead Sea joins other national priority locations such as the Lower Galilee, Nazareth, Beit Shean Valley, the Negev, the Upper and Western Galilee, the Golan, Jerusalem, Eilat, Netanya and Haifa.
In February, the government approved a proposal by the ministers of tourism and the environmental protection to invest approximately 850 million shekels over the next five years to increase tourism and develop the Dead Sea area.
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