Summer is almost here, and Israelis are booking vacations - but not in Israel: The number of reservations for vacation rentals in northern Israel is small, and demand has dropped, Israel Hayom reported.
A survey by Weekend.co.il showed that Israeli hosts have kept their prices stable since 2019, and some have dropped their prices in order to attract Israeli tourists.
Meanwhile, the chaos and staffing shortages at the airport continue, and Hebrew reports noted that many passengers are losing suitcases as a result.
Alon Ben Yaakov, CEO of Weekend, told Israel Hayom, "There are people who don't care about the price, who only want to go to Duty Free, but if we look at the price of the entire package and not just at the cost of the flight, vacations in Israel are definitely sanely priced. From an examination we did, 86% of vacation rentals offer one night at up to 1,100 NIS, and one-third of them will host you for less than 800 NIS."
"There are those who dropped their prices in accordance with the level of demand. Some of those we checked even dropped their prices relative to 2019. The price of flights is rising and we see that the world of tourism is changing."
"The standards of the vacation rentals have jumped by leaps and bounds," but noted that "this is not expressed in the pricing."
"You need to understand that also abroad, in July and August you are not paying the same prices as you would pay off season. Israelis are not calculating the fact that abroad, you spend a lot more time, you don't fly for a night or two, and the travel time and wait time for the flight, including the flight, is longer than a vacation that you would reach in two or three hours."
Lior Bez, former CEO of the Metula tourism society, said, "We absorb all of the price rises in the industry: property tax went up, the cost of the products and electricity also did, and we did not raise prices. We understand that we are in an unfair competition with vacations abroad, and unfortunately the Tourism Ministry is not trying to support tourism in Israel. There is a wide variety of prices, and sometimes the Israeli tourist prefers the chaos of a flight abroad to a vacation without lines and worries in Israel."