Israel Travel

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Travelers from North America representing the largest single source of tourism to the country, with some 600,000 North Americans visited Israel in 2006, almost 30% of the total tourists visiting Israel last year. Israel goal is to double North American tourism to Israel by 2010.

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The number of tourists entered Israel in 2006 decreased by 4.5% to 1.83 million, from 1.91 million tourists in 2005, according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics.

The first six months of 2006 showed an increase of 22% to over 1 million tourists, compare to the same period in 2005. But the outbreak of the Lebanon war in July 2006 leads to a drop of 27% in July-December to 0.76 million tourists that entered Israel.

The United States was the largest source of visitors to Israel. 494,000 tourists arrived from US in 2006, 8% more than a year earlier. 161,000 arrived from the UK, 3% more than in 2005.

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Israel can achieve 4-5 million tourist arrivals by 2011 if it would focus on improving long-term marketing, infrastructure, attracting investors and adopting a more liberal aviation policy, according to a report by international consulting firm Ernst & Young (E&Y).

The study about the Israeli tourism industry points out that investing $50 million a year on marketing Israel as an attractive travel destination will produce a $447 million a year in new revenues from foreign tourist arrivals. This would also be a major catalyst of growth for Israel economy, by boosting the GDP by $3.5 billion and creating 45,000 new jobs in Israel.

According to the Ernst & Young's optimistic estimates, Israel has a potential to bring 18 million tourists from eight major markets: the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Sweden, and then on Russia and China. Currently, only 1.2 million visitors come to Israel from those countries every year.

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A total of 1,063,917 foreigners visited Israel in the first seven months of the year, a 29 per cent rise over the same period in 2004, according to figures released by the Central Bureau of Statistics and Israel's Ministry of Tourism.

268,601 U.S. tourists arrived in Israel in the first seven months of the year, a 25 per cent increase over the same period last year, and a record 174,600 French tourists arrived between January and July 2005, a 27 per cent hike.

"Our goal is to welcome five million tourists to the country by the end of 2008," said Israel's Minister of Tourism Avraham Hirchson in response to the figures.

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