What the tourism industry has succeeded in doing over the years is mainly to survive. And that is not a compliment. True, there are objective reasons for the fact that after 60 years, Israel has still not managed to climb over the 3-million-tourist-a-year bar, but these were compounded by a shortsighted approach, failure to allocate substantial resources over the decades, and ongoing disdain for the Tourism Ministry, as seen by the frequent turnover of ministers and the belief that this is not an important ministry.
By now, Israel should have been welcoming between 4 and 5 million tourists a year, and should have been considered internationally as much of a tourist attraction as Thailand or Hawaii.
Tourism is growing constantly around the world, and there is no reason that Israel should not be part of that growth. In practice, however, the number of tourist stays in 2007 was equal to what it was in 1987.
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The biggest missed opportunity of them all is Jerusalem, a peerless city that could have risen to an international level.
Tourism should have been the largest component of Jerusalem's economy.
In the past two years, in fact, after the intifada left hotels and travel agencies battered and bruised, with fewer than a million incoming tourists a year, the industry is again on the upswing. Another success is the internalization of the awareness that tourism contributes to the economy and to employment, and constitutes a growth engine.
But the tourism industry in Israel has a glass ceiling: the number of hotel rooms. The hotels can accommodate slightly more than 3 million tourists. Even now there is a significant shortage of hotel rooms in peak periods, and it is likely to worsen in the coming years. With the country aiming for 5 million tourists in 2012, that shortfall becomes critical.
Simplifying bureaucratic procedures and granting incentives could improve the situation somewhat.
Still, building a hotel takes a few years, and the cranes over new hotel sites should already have been lofting into the skies of Jerusalem.
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