Israel certainly has some of the world’s premier tourist attractions; unfortunately not all who visit these sites respect them as they should, leaving the Holy Land with a much dirtier, rubbish-ridden image that often surprises and disappoints many.
And in a recent survey undertaken by the Israel Tour Guides Association, the lack of cleanliness in some cities was alarming: in fact, the Israeli capital Jerusalem was voted the country’s dirtiest city, along with Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee. Perhaps surprisingly, Haifa was voted the country’s cleanest tourism city.
The survey took the votes from over 100 registered tour guides across Israel; their mission was to rank eight Israeli cities and their level of cleanliness for this summer’s influx of tourists – Eilat, Tel Aviv, Safed, Akko, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Tiberias and Haifa.
Haifa topped the rankings, beating Eilat and Tel Aviv into second and third places respectively. Tiberias was ranked the dirtiest city in Israel, just behind Nazareth and Jerusalem. Personally, Tiberias always disappoints me. Despite being in an amazing location, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and hence a magnet for Christian tourists, it really has to clean up its act if it wants all those tourists to rave about the place and return.
The head of the Israel Tour Guides Association, Yaakov Miterani, had this to say about the poor cleanliness in Jerusalem and other parts of the country:
It’s painful to admit, but it is Jerusalem, the most touristic city in Israel and our window to the world, that has received the largest number of complaints from tourist groups regarding dirt and neglect.
The mission of bringing tourists to Israel is just the first part of tourism in the country. Once the tourists get here, the mayors of the central tourist cities are obligated to keep the sites under their care clean.
We say: Keep Israel Clean!