1 August 2010

FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS!
AFTER 12 YEARS, THE CABINET ADOPTS THE TOURISM MINISTRY’S NATIONAL OUTLINE
PLAN FOR HOTELS, WHICH WILL ENSURE THE PRESERVATION OF NATURE, THE
ENVIRONMENT AND THE LANDSCAPE, CULTURE, HERITAGE AND HISTORICAL VALUES WHILE
DEVELOPING TOURISM, LEISURE AND RECREATION.

Lydia Weitzman, Foreign Press Adviser to the Ministry of Tourism
Tel: 052 3584395 Email: tourism.gov.il@gmail.com
www.goisrael.com www.holyland-pilgrimage.org

Today, after more than a decade during which the Tourism Ministry worked to
promote the National Tourism Outline Plan (NOP 12) with the National
Planning and Building Council, the Ministerial Committee on Interior Affairs
and Services approved the plan.

The plan, which outlines policy development in the tourism industry with
emphasis on hotel use, is based on several principles in order to ensure the
preservation of land reserves for tourism, attractions and hotels in the
coming years, while preserving the natural environment and landscape,
culture, heritage and historical values alongside recreation and leisure
values.

The program principles include: determining a mechanism to protect land
designated for tourism, in particular those areas with large numbers of
visitors; directing the main tourist development to the key tourist cities;
determining directives for various tourism complexes (urban, beach, rural);
allowing the construction of special hotel accommodation at the Dead Sea and
Eilat; determining a minimum number of hotel rooms in Jerusalem and Tel
Aviv; determining directives to ensure priority for locations for hotel use;
insistence on maintaining appropriate physical standards for hospitality etc
in hotels.

The preparation of the plan comes against a background of attempts, some
successful, by municipalities to reduce the area designated for tourism and
hotels in national plans and building rights in approved plans, and turning
them into residential areas or adding non-tourism uses to areas designated
for tourism.

Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov: “Today we are lagging significantly
behind in the construction of hotels in relation to the Tourism Ministry’s
target for incoming tourism in the coming years. This shortage will prevent
the arrival of tourists to Israel because of the lack of supply, will
adversely affect growth in the economy and employment in the various tourism
industries and cause significant economic damage in relation to the economy’s
potential. The Tourism Ministry’s plan will send a new message to
entrepreneurs from Israel and overseas, primarily that Israel is an
attractive destination for investment in the hotel industry. Of no lesser
importance is the way the plan relates to preserving land reserves for
tourism, while preserving nature, the environment and the values of history
and heritage – which should remain in the focus of every enlightened society
and progressive country.”

The Tourism Ministry has long warned about the expected shortfall of
thousands of hotel bedrooms in Israel. In this situation, the expected
damage to the tourism industry and the entire economy in revenue loss is
estimated at tens of millions of dollars a year. According to the
“optimistic” forecast of the Ministry of Tourism, the shortage will be felt
from 2015, with an estimated shortage of about 19,000 rooms, in accordance
with the anticipated arrival of five million tourists a year.