Tourism down overall in 2014, but not by much

Approximately 3.3 million visitors came to Israel in 2014, a 7 percent decrease from 2013.

Despite the drop in visitors, there was an overall increase in the total number of tourists in 2014, with 3,000 more tourists visiting the Jewish state than in 2013, a record year for tourism in Israel, according to a press release circulated Sunday by the Tourism Ministry.

The year 2014 began with healthy increases over the previous year, with January to June seeing an 8% rise in visitors and an 18% rise in tourists spending more than one night in the country.

The trend, however, was broken during Operation Protective Edge, last summer’s 50-day conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, with tourism falling approximately 30% in July and tapering off at a 20% decrease for the rest of the year.

Tourism Minister Uzi Landau said in the communique that, despite the fall in international tourism, the industry was largely saved by a campaign to help stimulate domestic tourism — an effort that was credited for helping to keep hotels filled throughout the country.

“This year” — said Landau, referring to 2014 — “which started with a steep increase in the number of tourists, posed difficult challenges to us. Despite Operation Protective Edge, we succeeded in maintaining the same number of tourists and hotel overnights, thanks to focused overseas marketing, and mainly as a result of the Israeli response to the ‘Vacation in Israel Now’ campaign while the operation was still taking place.

“Israeli vacationers filled the hotels in the peak season of August, thereby supporting businesses in outlying areas and the Israeli economy,” he added.

Although numbers were somewhat steady according to most measures, only 90,000 tourists reached Israel by sea, a 65% decrease from the previous year. This represented a significant blow to the country’s cruise ship industry, which was already reporting a drop-off in growth before the outbreak of the conflict.

Travelers from the US amounted to 19% of incoming visitors, followed by Russia (17%), France (9%), Germany (6%) and the UK (5%).

The majority of tourists (56%) were Christian, with 24% of respondents identifying as Jewish and the rest identifying either as affiliated with other religions or unaffiliated.

Jerusalem, the country’s largest city, was by far the most visited place by tourists (82%), while Tel Aviv was second at 67% and the Dead Sea third at 54%.

Although many services — such as archaeological sites (4.5 points out of 5), guided tours (4.4 out of 5) and personal security (4.3 out of 5) — were highly rated by tourists, other services, including public restrooms (with a score of 3.5), taxis (rated 3.4) and value for money (3.1) were not.

Revenues from tourism in 2014, both domestic and foreign, brought $41 billion into the Israeli economy (NIS 161 billion), a slight decrease from the previous year.

The tourism industry employs 200,000 people, 6% of Israel’s workforce.