Israel Welcomes Millionth Tourist, and She’s From the UAE

Israel welcomed its millionth tourist for 2022, and she is from the United Arab Emirates. “At first, we thought and hoped that the President of the United States Joe Biden would be the millionth tourist to arrive in Israel in 2022, but once again, we have beaten the forecast,” Israel’s Tourism Minister Yoel Razvozov said at Ben-Gurion airport on Sunday, where he greeted Belinda Desoyo Lee Marcelo, 53, after she arrived from the UAE. The arrival of the millionth tourist comes just four months since coronavirus restrictions limiting entry into Israel were lifted on March 1. Israel had hoped to attract some 100,000 visitors from the UAE after opening up, the first opportunity that tourists from the Gulf country had to freely travel to Israel in the wake of the signing of the Abraham Accords normalizing relations between the two countries.  Up to 2 million tourists are expected by the end of the year, which is still less than half of the 4.5 million tourists who visited Israel in 2019, before the pandemic. Razvozov said that his goal for Israel’s tourism industry is to welcome 10 million tourists in 2030.