Eli Cohen, 52, was elected to the position of president of the Israel Hotels Association in place of Avi Nissenkorn who retired about 4 months ago.

Cohen, who has in-depth knowledge of the tourism industry and rich management experience in both the public and private sectors. Cohen served, among other things, as the Director General of the Ministry of Tourism. During his years at the Ministry of Tourism, he led the Open Skies Revolution, a revolution that enabled commercial competition between airlines. During his time, the Ministry of Tourism also made the first trade agreements with the low-cost airlines that began, for the first time, to fly to Israel.

Between the years 2006-2008, he was the supervisor of the salary in the Treasury and a member of the management of the Ministry of Finance. During this period, he signed several large collective agreements in the economy.

In 2008, he was appointed the VP of Commerce of “El-Al” and at the end of 2010, he joined Bank Hapoalim as the head of the bank’s marketing and service headquarters.

In 2017, he was appointed CEO of the “Mekorot” group. Under his management, Mekorot completed an organizational reform that included a listing on the stock exchange and a doubling of the annual development budget in addition to a technological revolution. In addition, “Mekorot” under Cohen’s management implemented the Abraham Agreements and was the first Israeli company to sign a business agreement First official with a company in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

Eli Cohen is expected to lead the hotel industry, which is sensitive to geopolitical changes, in the challenging period of the post-Corona era in tourism, which is aiming to repeat the achievements of 2019 and even beyond them, precisely in a period of security instability.

About 450 hotels are members of the Israel Hotel Association, including the large, medium and small chains and of course independent hotels.

Photo credit: Mekorot