Brother Spain, Spain: 720 million euros are given to tourism.

And what about us?

While we are begging guides and other tourists for compensation following the closure of the sky, in Spain this week decided on a grant of hundreds of millions of euros for new projects and encouraging tourism and competitiveness in the industry responsible for 12 percent of the country's economic output

Ziv Reinstein

08/12/2021

Wednesday, 08 December 2021, 10:37 Updated: 10:51

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Minister of Tourism Yoel Rozbozov at the Business Conference (Photo: Maariv)

Tourism in Israel is declining day by day, guides are no longer working for almost two years, hotels do not accept tourists who have been banned from entering the country for the time being (of course they did not come for many months from the beginning of the corona) and tens of thousands of other service providers.

The State of Israel has given meager grants to the self-employed and business owners in the field of tourism, but they too have ceased. Spain, on the other hand, like other countries in the world, puts its hand deep in its pocket and helps the tourism business in the country that is in crisis. The government in Madrid has announced that it will provide an aid package of 720 million euros ($ 809 million) to rehabilitate the tourism industry after it was hit following the plague. The money will go to an industry that is responsible for 12 percent of the country's economic output, according to Tourism Minister Rice Maruto who spoke on the issue after the cabinet meeting in the capital.

The funding includes € 565 million to go to innovative projects, which seek to make tourism more competitive through greater use of digital technologies, energy efficiency and sustainable practices.

Regardless, various areas of the country will receive grants to preserve historic heritage sites such as the famous Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route and the province of Galicia in northwestern Spain, which is similar to our Israel Trail but attracts more than 300,000 tourists each year.

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The streets of Barcelona at the opening of the Christmas season, last month (Photo: Reuters)

Tourists come despite the rise in morbidity.

Silger Beach in the town of Sanshanshou in Spain (Photo: ShutterStock, Shutterstock)

A jump in the number of tourists

The number of tourists in Spain soared in the first nine months of 2021 compared to the previous year and stood at 19.7 million people (an increase of 17.2% from the same period last year), but it still remained low below the pre-epidemic period, when

Although the data indicate an improvement in the tourism sector, they are far lower than the forecasts of the Spanish government about 45 million visitors a year - roughly half of 2019. However, according to gross, the state expects to receive to another-from 10.9 to 10.7 million tourists last three months of 2021.

Spain, like other large and touristy countries in Europe, is experiencing an increase in corona cases, with only yesterday (December 7) 43,808 cases of virus-infected patients being recorded. The increase in morbidity, after a large decrease, began last November, despite the fact that 79.5 percent of its citizens are vaccinated and 37.7 percent of them are vaccinated with at least two vaccines.

Passengers at Ben Gurion Airport at the end of last month, before the new restrictions (Photo: Reuven Castro)

What about compensation for small businesses?

And what about us? From March 2020 until last November, except in exceptional cases, no tourists were allowed to enter Israel. The Omicron variant also stopped the entry of tourists who nevertheless planned to spend Christmas in Israel. On November 1, tourists were finally allowed in, which was stopped on November 27 following the decision of the Corona Cabinet.

The Israeli tourism industry has received about NIS 1 billion from the government since the beginning of the crisis - NIS 400 million for hotels and another NIS 600 million for Israeli airlines, mainly El Al. But what about the small businesses in the industry? B&B owners, guides and other small service providers who do not have the power or lobby of hotels and airlines? For now, the Ministry of Finance refuses to provide compensation grants following the government decision that blocked the entry of tourists into the country. In general, the Ministry of Finance thinks that guides in Israel should make a change and look for another profession in light of the stay of the corona in the coming years.

Minister of Tourism Yoel Rezbozov said yesterday at the summit of Maariv and Walla !, "I try to bring the economic outline to the tourism industry, but it is difficult for us to exclude the industry, even though it is clear to everyone that it is the most affected. "2021 and gave a livelihood to hundreds of thousands. It is an industry that has a lot of potential, and if you let it collapse the country will lose from it."

According to the Hotels Association, the latest restrictions result in the hotel industry losing about half a billion shekels a month in revenue as a result of the closure of the sky. "The damage to inbound tourism hotels and workers in the industry is fatal," the association's president Avi Nissenkorn wrote to the finance minister and tourism minister.

At the end of last month, the chairman of the Association of Travel Agents, Kobi Karni, sent an appeal to Prime Minister Bennett, Finance Minister Lieberman and Tourism Minister Rezbozov, to avoid discrimination in various areas of tourism and to compensate those involved in outbound tourism. "Closure at Ben Gurion Airport, enormous economic damage to the organizers of outbound tourism and travel agencies, landing a death blow on inbound tourism to Israel," he wrote.

On Tuesday (Monday), the Association of Travel Ministries and Tourism Consultants in Israel sent a warning letter before submitting a petition to the High Court to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Tourism and the Minister of Health, calling for the lifting of severe restrictions on the entry and exit of Israelis. "Travel, in the outbound and inbound tourism organizers, in the travel agents in Israel and in all the businesses whose livelihood is related to or dependent on the inbound and outbound tourism, which has been eroding in the last two years."Written.

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