The Israeli Tourism Ministry has committed to building 4,500 new hotel rooms this year, with another 4,000 planned for 2023, as travellers return to the country and the tourism industry picks up again following the pandemic.

By contrast, just 5,000 rooms came to market in the five years preceding the outbreak of Covid-19.

While 2021 saw little progress in expanding capacity for travellers in Israel, due to the Covid pandemic with only three lots successfully put on the market with about 250 rooms, 2022 marks a major change.

Up to October 2022, 3,100 rooms have been successfully marketed with land being attributed.

Due to a high demand from tourists, the Ministry of Tourism anticipates that by the end of the year approximately another 1,300 more rooms will be successfully marketed. As part of the ministry’s hotel plan, by the end of 2023, approximately 4,000 additional rooms will be marketed.

Yoel Razvozov, Israel‘s Minister of Tourism said: “Adding rooms and increasing the supply will reduce the price for vacation in Israel, and will allow us to host more tourists. They will consequently bring more money into the economy. A successful marketing campaign of our country is another step on our way to meet the goal set for tourism in Israel. We target to host 10 million tourists a year by 2030. We will continue to act by all means to encourage and accelerate the establishment of tourist accommodation rooms in Israel, and to remove more and more barriers in the industry.”

Israel’s ambitious goal of boosting incoming tourist arrivals to 10 million over the next five years represents more than two times the record figure of 4.5 million tourists recorded in 2019.

Yaakov Quint, director of the Israel Land Authority said: “The government identified the tourism sector as a generator of growth and therefore acted, in cooperation with the Ministry of Tourism, to allocate land for hotels and recreation in order to meet the hotel industry’s goals and demands.”