Palestine’s tourism income has continued to fall because of the coronavirus pandemic, officers have confirmed. There was an estimated lack of $1.5 billion final 12 months, they added on World Tourism Day.
In line with the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) and the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities the affect of the pandemic on the tourism business has been large with necessary closures imposed upon lodges, tour operators, vacationer websites, services, and eating places. Greater than 30,000 staff throughout the business have been affected straight.
The variety of resort friends in the course of the first half of 2021 within the West Financial institution was 58,765, of whom greater than 77 per cent had been Palestinian residents of Israel; 22.5 per cent had been native residents and guests, however solely 0.3 per cent had been guests from overseas. There have been no resort friends recorded in Bethlehem throughout this era, making it essentially the most affected location nationwide, mentioned the official report.
Nevertheless, vacationer websites within the occupied West Financial institution witnessed a slight enchancment within the variety of native guests, at 880,000. This was a rise of 48 per cent in the course of the first half of 2021, in contrast with the identical interval final 12 months.
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Furthermore, Jericho and Al-Aghwar Governorate witnessed a document enhance of 72 per cent in resort friends throughout 2021 to date. In earlier years, they’d not gone above seven per cent of the whole variety of resort friends within the West Financial institution.
The tourism sector, particularly non secular tourism, has at all times been very important to the Palestinian economic system and has attracted substantial funding. It makes an necessary contribution to Palestine’s GDP however has been hit notably arduous by the pandemic.
