More than 3 million tourists visited Palestine in 2019, says tourist minister

Bethlehem. The Palestinian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Rula Maayah has announced that the number of tourists who visited Palestine during 2019 exceeded three million.

In an exclusive interview with Wafa, Ms Ma’ayah said the increase in the number of tourists over the past year was due to the ministry’s policy and concerted efforts with the private sector to advance the tourism sector.

This he says is testimony that Palestinian areas are secure and safe thanks to the Palestinian security establishment, despite daily violations the territory is exposed to due to the occupation.

She pointed out that the number of visitors in Palestinian hotels has exceed two million, with most of the tourists coming from Poland, Romania, the United States of America, Italy, and India.

She pointed out that eight years ago Palestine was participating in eight international tourism exhibitions, while now the participation has expanded to reach 22 exhibitions in the Far East, Latin America and Europe.

Mayaah says that the Ministry of Tourism worked in two directions to activate existing markets or to open new markets, the first of which is related to the media aspect in terms of advertising and tourism promotion, which has required a large budget.

"We invited the private sector and the media in many countries through delegations ranging from 50 to 70 people, to introduce them to the tourism infrastructure, archaeological sites and the nature of Palestinian life and culture.”

According to her these visits were successful and have seen on the ground increase in the number of tourists

Another initiative was  through organized activities abroad, as was recently in France an invitation and presence of more than (100) tourist offices in France, in partnership with the Embassy of Palestine And the Arab-Palestinian Chamber of Commerce, followed by a workshop, which created a link between the private sectors of the two countries.

Regarding the new markets, she says that the last market was Japan, where Hisham's Palace  is set to encourage the Japanese to visit Palestine, because it is part of cultural tourism ... in addition to the markets of the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, the Philippines, and South Africa .

She pointed out that the Israeli obstacles and measures delayed the opening of the Hisham Palace, which was supposed to open at the beginning of next year.

The minister did not hide the fact that listing some sites on the list of world cultural heritage, had a positive impact and a clear return on the increase in the number of tourists, including "Battir" west of Bethlehem, where a number of tourists from different countries visit it daily, and it has become a qualitative shift in terms of establishing Tourist lodges, oriental antiques shops and important facilities for tourism, indicating that their inclusion was within the framework of protecting them from the destruction of the separation wall.

She revealed that the new file that the Ministry began working on with UNESCO to include it on the World Heritage List is the "Jericho File". she dealt with the tourism cluster, and said that the government policy in general aims to develop cities with clusters, including the tourism sector, and a tourism plan was prepared in cooperation with the institutions of Bethlehem pending the approval and approval of the Council of Ministers, to be implemented with the start of the new year the implementation of a plan Tourism cluster development.

She pointed out that there is a great development in the hotel sector to receive large numbers, by increasing it, pointing out that there are (210) hotels in Palestine, including (78) in the main cities of Bethlehem, BeitSahour, and BeitJala, with a rate of (5210) rooms.

There were 18 in Jericho, (5) in Hebron, (35) in Jerusalem, (5) in Jenin, (35) in Ramallah, (20) in Nablus, as well as in Gaza.

Maayya explained that the year 2019 will be different from the previous years by launching the "Wi-Fi" service in Bethlehem, so that tourists can benefit from it, which aims to introduce the tourist to the location where he is in Palestine. And you tell him that the internet service is free during his time in the heart of Bethlehem.