Israeli tourism revenues grow to 5.87 bln USD in 2018

Israel's tourism revenues reached 20.88 billion new shekels (5.87 billion U.S. dollars) in 2018, up 14.6 percent year on year, according to a survey released by the Ministry of Tourism on Sunday.

According to the survey, the average expenditure excluding flight expenses per tourist was 1,402 dollars in 2018, down from 1,421 dollars in 2017.

The survey covered 15,000 tourists out of the 4.19 million who visited Israel in 2018, while 3.6 million tourists visited Israel in 2017.

According to the survey, 93 percent of the tourists surveyed said the visit to Israel was good or excellent.

In addition, 53.2 percent of the tourists said their viewpoint on Israel changed for the better after the visit, 45.6 percent said the visit did not change their minds, and 1.2 percent said that their viewpoint changed for the worse.