Israel sets new tourism record in 2017

Israel broke all previous tourism records in 2017 with 3,611,800 million tourist entries, a 25 per cent increase over 2016, and 29 per cent over 2015, a figure which included more than 80,000 Canadians representing a 25 per cent increase.

The United States remains the largest source country for incoming tourists, with 778,800 tourist entries in 2017, 20 per cent more than 2016.

The second largest source country is Russia (331,500), followed by France (308,600), Germany (218,100) and the UK (198,500). As anticipated, the largest growth came from Poland (89 per cent increase) and China (45 per cent) – two countries where the Tourism Ministry invested considerably in marketing.

Israel Tourism Commissioner to North America Uri Steinberg said that 2017 is the first year that visitation to the country has passed the 3 million mark, an achievement which he attributed to the destination’s new approach to marketing.

“This is a direct outcome of an all-encompassing revolution in marketing policy that we have implemented over the last two years: principally, adopting an innovative marketing strategy, offering incentives to airlines to open new routes with significant incoming tourism potential and collaborations that have been created for the first time with the largest online travel agents in the world,” Steinberg said. “The revolution in tourism in 2017 has made a huge contribution to Israel’s economy. For the first time, revenue from incoming tourism passed the NIS 20 billion threshold, while creating about 25,000 new jobs.”