After a long period in which Egyptians stayed away from Israel, 735 Egyptian tourists entered the country last month, the Interior Ministry reported.
The bulk of the visits were Easter Holiday pilgrimages and lasted some 10 days; the pilgrimage trips included tours of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and Tiberias, the ministry said.
It was also reported recently that the Interior Ministry has received requests from travel agents who want to bring Jordanian tourists to Israel.
Visa reform
To this end, the Interior and Tourism ministries are working to draft a new “one-day” tourist visa, which would permit tourist ships to dock in Haifa’s port, thus permitting tourists on board to visit the country for several hours.
Until now, tour operators had to request regular tourist visas – which covered a period of 90 days but took as long as 10 days to receive – for groups coming from countries which did not have visa agreements with Israel (mainly East European, Asian, African and South American countries).
Groups that wanted to dock for a few hours in Haifa had to first get a group visa ahead of time. All it took was one tourist, for example, from Eastern European to prevent the entry of the entire group.
Should the one-day plan be put into action, tour operators will be able to get international travelers the proper entry papers after the group has already docked at the port. For Israel, this will mean opening up its tourism industry to a whole new segment of foreign visitors.
