Hotels lambast rate hike for kashrut certificates

Ministry of Religious Services says uptick was meant to be instituted last year

View of the Hilton Queen of Sheba Hotel in Eilat (Photo credit: Moshe Shai/FLASH90)
View of the Hilton Queen of Sheba Hotel in Eilat (Photo credit: Moshe Shai/FLASH90)

Israeli hotels castigated the Ministry of Religious Services for hiking the price of kashrut certificates by almost 30 percent even as the tourism industry suffered from a downturn following Operation Protective Edge this summer.

Hoteliers Association CEO Shevi Shai criticized the government for announcing plans ostensibly to help the battered tourism sector when hotels were simultaneously receiving notifications that the rates for their certificates will rise 29.5%, according to Yeshiva World News.

Another official pointed out that the rate hike seemed to go against the recommendations of the Bar Nir committee in 2012, accepted by the cabinet, to reduce bureaucratic operating expenses.

The Ministry of Religious Services responded that the rate hike was supposed to go into effect in November 2013, but several local municipalities had not instituted it until recently, adding that the increase was a standard adjustment to the economic index.

Israel launched Operation Protective Edge on July 8 to stop Hamas’s indiscriminate rocket fire on Israeli cities and its tunnels infrastructure that reached into Israeli territory. During the seven-week campaign, Hamas and other Gaza-based terror groups fired thousands of rockets including at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Figures by the Central Bureau of Statistics showed that during July and August, 400,000 visitors came to Israel, 31% less than for the same months in 2013.

Israel’s central bank has already reduced its interest rate to an all-time low in order to counteract a foundering economy due in part to the Gaza military operation.

The Foreign Ministry said it has already launched a recovery program that is focusing on tourism from Russia and Germany as well as a television campaign broadcast globally on Eurosport TV.

Tourism Minister Uzi Landau said that the statistics showed the need for a more comprehensive aid package for the tourism industry.

Director-General of the Tourism Ministry Amir Halevy insisted that “compensation for [the tourism] industry will generate several times as much in revenue for the economy.”

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