Israel – Passover Travel Steady with 500,000 Israelis Traveling Despite Recession

Israel – Despite the economic crisis, it seems that Israel’s tourism industry can chalk up a better Passover holiday than expected.

Although the Israel Airport Authority reports an 8% drop in outgoing passenger traffic compared with last year, that still means that 500,000 Israelis flew abroad, traveling on 3,000 flights.

As for domestic tourism for the holiday, the Israel Hotels Association reports that the nationwide room occupancy rate was 75%, 10% less than last year. Hotels at the Dead Sea were an exception, where half the hotels made prearranged bulk deals with haredi (ultra-orthodox) groups. These hotels were fully occupied for the holiday.

El Al VP customers division David Maimon said that the airline carried 63,000 passengers during the holiday, and that planes were nearly full. Heavy demand led the airline to increase flights to New York, Paris, Rome, Moscow, Barcelona, and other destinations.

“The airline did not see a drop in departures compared with April 2008. However, we felt the impact of the crisis on incoming traffic, which was down 10% compared with last year,” he said.

Flying Carpet CEO Eyal Kashdan said that most Passover reservations were made at the last moment, and greatly boosted overseas tourism traffic.

“This year, more than ever, Israelis waited until the last moment. Outgoing flights for Passover filled up only in the week preceding the holiday. Flights for the last day of the holiday are also filling up,” he said.

Kashdan noted that, despite the sharp drop in recent months for vacations in Antalya, Turkey, passenger traffic to this destination picked up for Passover, and it was still the second most popular destination for Israelis after the US. Top destinations after Turkey were the UK, Germany, and Italy.