After a little bit of an easing off at the start of the year, what with Middle East strife rampant (just look across the border at Egypt), the tourism stats for May have revealed a nice little bump – in fact, a record May!
The record breaking 2010 looked like it might not be broken in 2011, but it seems as though things are back on track. A nice 5% increase over the previous record May (set in 2010) has seen the optimism return big-time.
That 5% increase meant a total of 308,000 visitors arriving in Israel during May, and saw the January-May total reach some 1,350,000 visitors.
This total is actually very slightly down on the same period last year. But with a new campaign, “Israel Week” about to be launched (a worldwide campaign to promote Israel and backed with 60 million shekels from the Ministry of Tourism), and numbers traditionally set to increase through the end of the year, a record-breaker could be on the cards yet again.
Our old pal at the Tourism Ministry, Stas Misezhnikov, had this to say:
The success of the Tourism Ministry in stabilizing incoming tourism to Israel, given the geopolitical situation in the region that is affecting the image of the region and Israel within it, is both impressive and important. We will continue in these efforts in the coming months.