In the midst of ongoing war, Israel's tourism flounders with few travellers and many limitations

Hija Morsi has been a tour guide in Israel for many years. He survived the global COVID pandemic and returned to the tourism business. As head of the forum for Arabic-speaking tour guides in Israel, he has worked with tourists worldwide and has experienced periods of instability. However, none resembles the current period in which Israel has been at war for almost ten months.

“There is almost no work,” Morsi told The Media Line. “From October 2023 until today, I have had one group from India, and I keep trying to convince Israelis to tour the country, but even within the country, there are limits to where one can travel due to the war.”

Morsi, a father of five, said he is struggling to find a way to make a living.

The war broke out in southern Israel on October 7 and quickly spread to its northern borders with Syria and Lebanon. Before the war, tourism in Israel had enjoyed several peak years of blossoming despite a slight slump due to internal political unrest leading up to October 7. Before that, the COVID years had also hit the tourism sector.

The war resulted in the cancellation of most incoming flights into Israel for a few months. Though flights have since resumed, as the war between Israel and Hamas continues to dominate international headlines, the country has lost its appeal as a tourist destination for foreigners.

“When the war began, everything stopped, and until April, not a single tourist arrived in Israel,” Moshe Benishu, a tourism expert and guide in Aujo Travel, told The Media Line. His current project is creating tour packages for tourists who previously wanted to travel to Israel but have decided to go elsewhere. “We Israelis are good at re-inventing ourselves. Government assistance was a joke, and the tourism sector has completely collapsed,” he added.

projecting a positive outlook for incoming tourism

According to the Israeli Tourism Ministry, a little over three million tourists entered Israel in 2023, from January until October. Before the war, there was a 10% increase in tourists from the US. Thirty-six percent of tourists came for touring and sightseeing, and 20% came for pilgrimage. The average stay in Israel was around eight nights, allowing enough time to visit all the tourist attractions and historical sites from the north to the south. These numbers have since plummeted.

Before the war, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics had projected a positive outlook for incoming tourism to the country, as the number of incoming tourists since the beginning of 2023 had almost reached the pre-pandemic level of 2019, a record-breaking year for Israeli tourism. In that year, 4.5 million tourists entered Israel. But now, the outlook is far less optimistic. In June 2024, 97,000 tourists entered Israel, compared to more than triple that number in the same month last year. Since the beginning of 2024, 500,000 tourists have entered the country. In comparison, between January and June 2023, there were over two million tourist entrances into Israel.

Due to the war, tens of thousands of Israelis have been evacuated from their homes. Many of them have been in hotels ever since. This has helped the hotel business stay afloat as the rest of the tourism-related businesses struggle. The current situation differs from the pandemic; though the entire tourism sector was hard hit, there were more options back then for domestic tourism as restrictions gradually lifted. In contrast, because of the war, many areas in the north and south have been inaccessible to tourists due to fighting. This limitation did not exist during the pandemic. 

“Contrary to the Coronavirus, there are many more victims this time to take care of,” Benishu said. “The hotels weren’t really hit, so the problem in the tourism sector is very, very local, and it seems like no one really cares about it.”

“During the pandemic, tour guides were encouraged by the state to take vocational courses in other professions, and there were initiatives to encourage domestic tourism,” he added. “This time, there is no initiative. Don’t just throw money at people, making them feel needy. They want to feel productive.”

According to the Tourism Ministry, there were over 8,300 registered tour guides in the country before the pandemic. Recent data shows that the number has dropped to around 6,000.

Whereas the pandemic was a global challenge that rocked the global tourism industry, the impact is local this time. The hotels are mainly geared now for domestic tourism, and tour guides remain with no work since tourists from abroad are too few.

“Tourists have choices now; they can travel anywhere,” said Wai-Lam Chan, general secretary of Moreshet Derech Association for Israeli Tourist Guides in Incoming Tourism.

According to 2020 data from the Ministry of Tourism, Israel’s tourism sector accounted for 2.6% of Israel’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Before the pandemic, 145,000 people worked in the sector, which was on its way to a full post-pandemic recovery. Some of those workers were Palestinians, who are currently barred from working in Israel, leaving the sector in need of workers. To solve the lack of manpower, the Israeli government approved permits for 6,800 workers last month, specifically for the tourism sector.

“The few tourists that do come have very few hotel options that are all occupied by evacuees,” Adrian Weisberg, chairman of the Israel Tour Guides Association, told The Media Line.

According to Weisberg, many tour guides are over the age of 67, making them ineligible for unemployment payments from the government. Additionally, unemployment payments are only granted to people who have had a minimum amount of employment prior to their unemployment. Some guides don’t have a congruent period of work because of the pandemic, making them ineligible.

“The government shouldn’t be so petty, and there should be much less bureaucracy,” Weisberg said, adding that his organization has already handed out food packages to tour guides in need. “The sector has been almost completely wiped out, and there is no answer for us.”

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a preliminary discussion on the state budget for 2025. With credit rating cuts and a soaring deficit, it is hard to see how the government will prioritize the tourism sector or address at least some of the problems.

“People are really hurt,” said Chan. “They are taking loans and in a difficult situation. The young people can find other jobs, but for many tour guides, it is their second and third career. Who wants to hire someone over the age of 60?”

Weisberg’s calendar was fully booked until spring 2025 and is now empty. He hopes it will begin to refill by next spring. 

Morsi, who says he loses sleep every night, tossing and turning while trying to figure out how to make a living, is also hopeful.

“After the storm, the sun always rises,” he said. “I hope for the day the tourists come back to the country I love so much.”