Tourism in Israel

The Western Wall and Dome of the Rock in the Old City of Jerusalem

An aerial view of the Sea of Galilee

Tel Aviv, the second-largest city in Israel

Tourism in Israel is one of the country's major sources of income, with a record 4.55 million tourist arrivals in 2019.^[1] Tourism contributed NIS 20 billion to the Israeli economy in 2017, making it an all-time record.^[2][3][4][5] Israel offers a plethora of historical and religious sites, beach resorts, natural sites, archaeological tourism, heritage tourism, adventure tourism, and ecotourism. For practical reasons, this article also covers tourism in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the occupied Golan Heights, since it is closely interconnected with the mass tourism in Israel. Over the millennia the Holy Land has been amongst the most visited lands in the world.^[6]

Israel has the highest number of museums per capita in the world with over 200 museums.^[7][8]

In 2017, the most popular paid tourist attraction is Masada.^[9] The most visited city was Jerusalem and the most visited site was the Western Wall. The largest percentage of tourists came from the United States accounting for 19% of all tourists, followed by Russia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, China, Italy, Poland, and Canada.^[4]

Religious tourism is very popular in Israel and in the West Bank. The Holy Land has historically been a piligramge site for Christians, Jews and Muslims for milienia. Many of the stories of the Old and New Testaments occur in what is now modern Israel, and thus a number of sites are considered holy in the eyes of Christians and Jews. As of 2007, the two most visited Jewish religious sites were the Western Wall and the grave of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai;^[10] The most visited Christian holy sites are the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, and the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, Israel. The most visited Islamic religious places are the Masjid Al-Aqsa (the Temple Mount) in Jerusalem, and the Ibrahimi Mosque at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank town of Hebron.^{[citation needed]}