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Figures for the first two months of 2017 have shown the best ever recorded start to the tourism year in Israel.
In February 2017, 234,000 tourist entries were recorded, 22% increase on February 2016.
In the two months January-February 2017, 467,000 tourist entries were recorded, 25% increase on the same period last year.
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Couldn’t agree with you more, David. Sol and Ron: what sad sacks!
They are a mean spirited pair.
Ron Burdo and Sol Salbe
Never thought I would see the day when two Jews were upset at a record number of tourists visiting Israel.
Having visited last December I was more than happy to queue up behind at least 800 tourists in front of me waiting at Immigration to get their entry cards.
Had time to speak to many of them including an excited group of Christians from Kenya who could not believe they had finally arrived in the Holyland.
Also spoke to groups of young Jews from all around the world who certainly didn’t have your mean- spirited approach.
Tourism was booming in December. Fantastic to think it has even gone up even more since then.
BTW – when did you two last visit Israel?
I visit there every 1-2 years. Most of my family lives there.
Ron
With such close ties to Israel as you have – why would you want to bad mouth the country? There are enough people doing that already.
I personally have found Israel to be very inexpensive and the dazzling array of religious and historic sites sacred for Jews, Christians and Moslems in the one small country to be unique in the world.
Ironically attempts to besmirch Israel by cheap shots like yours only increases the desire of people to go and look for themselves.
Tourism would grow exponentially if the Arabs were prepared to bury the hatchet after 100 years of rejecting the right of the Jewish people to have their own State in their ancient homeland as sanctioned by the League of Nations and the United Nations.
Israeli culture encourages people to think, criticise and point at things that require change on improvement. That’s what I am doing here. The culture of “talk positive only”, which is common (and in my view, disastrous) in Australian Jewish community, does not exist in Israel.
You claim that Israel is inexpensive, can you tell what services you found inexpensive? I get an opposite feedback from people who go there.
Israel has a lot to offer for travelers, but the high costs of services for tourists keeps many of them away. Religious pilgrims will come anyway, however in order to boost tourism, Israel should be attractive for more types of travelers – and for those, high costs are a major factor.
Why is talking positively “disastrous”?
As to the services I found inexpensive?
Everything is relatively inexpensive – food, accommodation, tourism. Only petrol is dearer than here – easily overcome by using public transport.
Israel is a very attractive destination for tourists who can arrange a car driver and guide to take them to a myriad of historical sites like Caesarea, Masada and Megiddo as well as the limestone caves at Nes Harim and Rosh Hanikra or the incredible Dead Sea.
Shopping is an absolute delight with a large number of shopping malls and markets in Israel. Truly amazing to see Jews and Arabs shopping there in perfect freedom and harmony.
Beauty is you can traverse Israel in just a few days and stay at very inexpensive Zimmers or Kibbutz hotels.
What did you mean by “ripping off service providers”?
How about we visit these figures when the half-yearly figures are avaialable?
Surprising, as Israel is very expensive for tourists, from accomodation prices to ripping-off service providers.