Israel's hotel industry failing to grow
While other countries have recorded impressive growth in incoming tourism in past 14 years, Israel is finding it difficult to attract visitors for more than a one-day stopover.
While tourist stays in the first quarter of 2014 – 2.38 million – recorded an increase from the same quarter of the previous year, they were 10% lower than tourist stays in the first three months of 2000, which attracted many visitors due to Pope John Paul II's visit in March.
Although the total number of overnight stays in Israel's hotels by both Israelis and foreign tourists, which was 4.59 million, is slightly higher (7%) than the same quarter in 2000, it is seen as a freeze compared to the growth in incoming tourism recorded by other countries over the past 14 years.
Let's put things in order: The official data on annual entries point to a growth – 3.529 million entries to Israel in 2013 compared to 2.672 million in 2000. But the numbers do not refer to the same figure. From 2007, this figure also includes one-day entries to Israel by visitors who tour neighboring countries and stop by Israel for several hours without staying for the night.
So in 2013, the number of entries included 578,000 one-day visitors, and in 2012 – as many as 634,000. In fact, the major part of the growth from 2000 to 2013 – 867,000 people – was of one-day visitors who were not included in the 2000 figure and who have no effect on Israel's hotel industry.
It appears that in the past 14 years, the Israeli hotel industry has failed to grow. According to the Israel Hotel Association (IHA), the number of hotel rooms – 49,388 – has grown by just 8% since 2000.
IHA President Eli Gonen said Monday that tourism was not a national preference and that increasing tourism to Israel required massive marketing.
"I have been saying for years that we must focus on marketing," Gonen told Yedioth Ahronoth. "We have a serious problem, and the quarterly figures illustrate it in the sharpest way. The government must give the industry the proper support and put it at the top of the list of priorities. When there was a crisis in the United States, the administration allotted funds to solve the crisis, and this is exactly what has to happen here."
Here are some figures which may explain why incoming tourism is failing to make progress: In 2000, some 1.954 tourists arrived in Israel by air, 143,000 of them on direct flights to Eilat. Another 255,000 people arrived at the Haifa and Ashdod ports on cruise ships. In 2013, no ships arrived in Israel's ports and the number of tourists arriving on direct flights to Eilat was about one-third of the 2000 figure.
The data show that the government does not see tourism as an industry worth investing in. During his term as finance minister, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the government would allot millions in marketing for every additional 100,000 incoming tourists, but that didn't actually happen.
Gonen is right to give the American example. In 2001, the US had almost 47 million visitors. In the two years after the 9/11 terror attacks, the number dropped to 43 million visitors in 2002 and 41 million in 2003. Following appeals from the tourism industry, the administration invested huge budgets in marketing tourism to the US. As a result, the number of tourists in 2005 exceeded that of 2001, and in 2013 the US was visited by close to 70 million people – up 48% from 2001.
The tourism growth in Turkey is even more impressive. In 1998, when the casinos were closed, Turkey's era as a tourism country appeared to be over. But the government invested billions and handed out grants to hotel entrepreneurs. Antalya, for example, grew from a town of 100,000 residents to more than one million. While in 1998 the country had 9.7 million visitors, in 2013 the number jumped to 35 million.
A Tourism Ministry official said in response that tourism to Israel was "a difficult challenge" in light of the daily international media coverage of shooting attacks, rocket fire and other incidents which drive tourists away, alongside the hotel prices which are among the highest in the world.
"Nonetheless," the official added, "through a skillful marketing system, the ministry succeeds in bringing millions of tourists every year, which bring in some NIS 40 billion (about $11.5 billion) – a significant growth engine for the Israeli economy. The years 2012 and 2013 were record years in tourism to Israel."
