TOURISM MINISTRY RESPONSE TO THE CBS HOTEL OCCUPANCY STATISTICS
JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2016
Tourism Ministry 23 March 2016

Tourism Ministry Director-General Amir Halevi: "The increase of 4% in
tourist person-nights since the beginning of the year testifies to the fact
that tourism continues to grow alongside terror. The world has already come
to the understanding that routine must continue, as nowhere is safe and
terror can strike in the capitals of Europe, in the cities of the United
States and in the holiday resorts of the Far East - and now in major
airports. At the Tourism Ministry, we are optimistic and choose to
continually improve the tourism product in Israel and to increase our
international marketing efforts because an atmosphere of doom and gloom will
do nothing to encourage tourism.

If there was a phenomenal increase in the numbers of Chinese participating
in last week's Jerusalem Marathon (170 from 6 the previous year), then the
figures speak for themselves.

At the same time, prices must drop and there must be an understanding that
the world of tourism is changing. Today's tourist pays $100 for a low-cost
airfare and is looking for innovation and variety in new products, and I
hope that the hoteliers are prepared for this.

Therefore, we find it difficult to understand talk about a 'crisis', given
the 2015statistics that show the year ended without any damage to hotel
turnover as compared to 2014, in which there was a natural decline of single
percentage points in incoming tourism as a result of Operation Protective
Edge and a large increase of Israeli person-nights.

The Tourism Minister Yariv Levin instructed an increase in marketing efforts
and in recent months there has been a significant increase in incoming
tourism from markets such as China and India, alongside a continuing
improving trend from markets such as the UK and USA which registered growth
on last year. "

CBS statistics: In January-February 2016 as opposed to the same period last
year, there has been a 4% increase in tourist person-nights in hotels, an
increase of 1.5% in Israeli person-nights in hotels and overall, an increase
of 2.4%.