The Hotel Association’s Economic Research Department recently published hotel data for September, comparing this year to last year as well as September 2017.

September this year brought an all-time record for this month, of about a million tourist nights. This is an increase of 51% compared to September last year and an increase of 48% compared to September 2017. Most of the tourist stays were recorded in Jerusalem (about 34%) and in Tel Aviv (about 25% of all nights).

National room occupancy averaged about 74%, up 25% over September 2018 and 19% up September 2017.

The highest occupancy rate was in Nazareth with 86%, TA with 83%, followed by Herzliya with 81%, Eilat with 79%, Jerusalem with 74%, Tiberias with 72%, Dead Sea, Haifa and Netanya with 71% occupancy each.

The number of rooms stood at 55,800, up 2% from last year and 5% compared to 2017, following the opening of new hotels and the addition of rooms.