In 2022, 2.675 million tourists entered Israel, compared to 397 thousand arrivals (only) in 2021 and 831 thousand arrivals in 2020. The skies in Israel were officially opened for tourist arrivals only in March 2022 and in fact – without restrictions – only about 3 months later, in May.

The volume of incoming tourism to Israel this year is approximately 41% lower than the record year 2019. The volume of revenue from incoming tourism is estimated at 13.5 billion ILS (not including tourist expenses on flights with Israeli companies) compared to approximately 23 billion ILS in 2019.

The Ministry of Tourism, Haim Katz, points out that several factors must be taken into account that affected the number of tourist arrivals in the year of recovery: “as we know, tourists plan their trips some time in advance, and also that Israel opened up to tourism later than similar destinations in the region and Europe. Therefore, the rate of Israel’s recovery from the crisis is slightly lower than the global average, which is a decrease of about 36% in the volume of incoming tourism compared to 2019”.

However, an increase in tourism can be seen from month to month: in December 2022, 266.2 thousand tourist arrivals were recorded (compared to 20.5 thousand in December 2021 and 358.3 thousand in December 2019) – a decrease of about 25% (only) in relation to December 2019.

Record of Israeli nights: In 2022, over 20 million Israeli overnight stays were recorded in a variety of accommodation facilities in Israel of all types. This is a number that is higher than the volume of overnight stays in 2019 before the corona virus (in which 18.4 million Israeli overnight stays were recorded). As a result of the significant increase in overnight stays by Israelis, the income from domestic tourism also increased significantly, with revenues in 2022 reaching more than 17 billion ILS compared to approximately 12.7 billion ILS in 2019