80 percent decrease in the number of tourists visiting Israel
The number of tourists visiting Israel in the last quarter of 2023 fell by 81.5 percent compared to the same period the previous year, as Israel continues its attacks on the Gaza Strip for 5 months, having killed more than 30 thousand Palestinians.
AA
Israel has been experiencing its worst period in the tourism sector since October 7, due to the attacks it has been carrying out on the Gaza Strip. In addition to the Israeli forces' attacks on Gaza, the ongoing clashes with Hezbollah on the Lebanon border since October 8 and the escalation of violence in the West Bank are causing tourists to stay away from the country.
OCTOBER 7 ATTACKS AFFECTED TOURISTS
Immediately after the attacks began on October 7, the vast majority of airlines and tourism companies announced that they were suspending their flights to Israel. Although some of them later resumed their flights gradually, the significant drop in the number of tourists visiting the country continued.
As the attacks enter their 5th month, major airlines have suspended their flights until further notice.
According to figures shared by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, the contraction in the tourism sector in the last quarter of 2023 reached its lowest level since the 2000s, when the Second Intifada began, excluding the COVID-19 period in 2020.
According to the data, while approximately 180 thousand tourists visited Israel in the last quarter of 2023, 930 thousand people had visited in the same period the previous year.
The number of tourists visiting Israel, which has been responsible for numerous massacres in the Gaza Strip for nearly 5 months, fell by 81.5 percent during this period.
DECLINE IN OCTOBER, NOVEMBER, AND DECEMBER
Most international tourism companies canceled their tours due to rocket attacks launched by Palestinian groups on coastal cities in response to Israel's attacks on Gaza.
Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean coast, the city of Eilat on the Red Sea coast, Haifa, settlements on the Gaza border, and cities on the northern border with Lebanon were among the most visited places.
Due to its attacks on the Gaza Strip, Israel is also facing rising tensions in the north with Lebanon's Hezbollah. Israel has had to evacuate tens of thousands of Israeli settlers from their residences to different regions due to the ongoing clashes.
Similarly, while the city of Eilat in southern Israel has faced drone attacks by the Houthis in Yemen, Jerusalem has experienced one of its worst seasons for Jewish and Christian religious tourism.
Yossi Fattal, Chairman of the Israel Incoming Tour Operators Association, said in a statement last month that Israel had become "an isolated country like North Korea" and that dozens of companies were reluctant to fly to Israel after the war broke out in the Gaza Strip.
Fattal, who brings together and represents travel agencies working in the field of incoming tourism in Israel, stated in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Maariv on February 21, "Israel is completely isolated from the world. Currently, 80 percent of flights in Israel are carried out by aircraft belonging to Israel's official airline, El Al Airlines."
AIRLINE OPERATIONS HAVE DECREASED
Fattal stated that 250 airlines were operating in Israel before October 7, 2023, when the attacks on Gaza began, but this number has dropped to 45.
After almost all foreign airlines stopped their flights to and from Israel in the last quarter of last year, the national airline El Al and other Israeli airlines monopolized round-trip flights to Tel Aviv.
El Al Airlines had announced twice in the early days of the Gaza attacks that it expected to take a financial hit from the conflicts in the fourth quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, but it turned out that the picture is now the exact opposite.
El Al finished 2023 with an increase in profits, reporting a net profit of 117 million dollars, and its net profit in the fourth quarter of 2023 reached 39.7 million dollars, an increase of 370 percent compared to the same period last year.
A report published in January by the Israeli website Calcalist also stated that while 900 thousand tourists were expected to visit Israel in the 3-month period after the start of the attacks on Gaza, this number remained at 190 thousand.