Tuesday, August 20, 2024 Israel ‘s tourism industry has suffered significantly since Hamas launched its terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023. A statistics from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics reveal that the number of tourists dropped from around 300,000 in September to around 89,000 in October. The number is falling to around 38,000 in November.
So did tourism income. In 2023, it declined from around $1.4 billion in the third quarter to around $464 million in the last quarter, according to data from Israel’s CBS.
2023 was supposed to be a record year for tourism in Israel; we were close to 4.5 million tourists, said Peleg Lewi, a foreign affairs advisor to Israel’s Tourism Ministry. The downward trend has continued over the first six months of this year, with just 501,100 visitors compared to 2.
1 million in the same period last year, per data from Israel’s CBS. The lack of visitors has been compounded by many international airlines pausing flights to Israel in the wake of Hamas’ terrorist attacks, with some still canceling flights as recently as this week. As many as 46,000 businesses have been forced to shut down since the October 7 terrorist attacks, according to a business information company, relayed by a news agency of Israel last month.
Relying on domestic clients, exporting abroad, and cost-cutting David Tucker, general manager of the Ramada by Wyndham Hotel in Jerusalem, said that the hotel is facing a challenge due to a “big” drop in internatio.