More than 60-80% cancellation has been done by international tourists as the confrontation between Israel and Iranians in Syria grows.
The tension erupted after Donald Trump’s announcement that the US was pulling out of the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement. This move has infuriated Iran and raised international and diplomatic tensions across the Middle East.
This is massive decline in tourism as 60-80 percent of hotels and bed-and-breakfast reservations in the Golan and its adjacent have been cancelled.
The month of May is especially important for the tourism. On May 18 the tourist season when visitors pick their own fruit will begin. This has attracted tens of thousands of tourists to the Golan Heights. Now tour operators fear the entire enterprise is under threat due to the political tension and the Iran- Israel conflict.
Shmuel Hazan, CEO of the Golan Tourism Association, says the area’s residents are maintaining their routine amid the chaos surrounding them, but he is very worried over the state of tourism, a major source of income in the area.
Golan tourism is taking a very hard beating due to this conflict.
Hazan said most visitors in the spring come in organized groups, in buses, in the middle of the week, while private tourists come mainly during the weekends. This means that every cancellation of an organized group reduces the number of visitors by dozens and sometimes hundreds.
Hazan also said that bus, flights and train cancellation is creating a dramatic effect in maintain the local economy. At the moment the tourism authority cannot recommend that people come to the Golan Heights.
