Hotel in Jerusalem
צילום: רון פלד
Hotel occupancy drops 10% in 2009
Central Statistics Bureau says overnight stays by tourists from abroad slid significantly this year
A 10% drop has been recorded so far this year for hotel occupancy throughout Israel, the Central Statistics Bureau announced Monday.
According to the collected data there were 14.8 million overnight stays in hotels between January and September, of which 9 million were Israeli clients and the rest were tourists from abroad.
Overnight stays for tourists from out of the country dropped 25% according to these figures.
The bureau said many tourists had canceled bookings this year and speculated that the cancellations may have been due to regional instability, for example Operation Cast Lead.
Hotel occupancy this year has so far reached 58%, a slide from the 67% recorded during the same period in 2008.
The monthly average of overnight stays also dropped by 25% in 2009, with 852,000 stays in 2008 and just 642,000 on average recorded this year.
