Tourism Minister Yoel Razvozov announced Sunday night that in light of the “insanely high” prices for vacations in Israel, he decided not to continue his ministry’s campaign promoting urban vacations in Israel. On Monday morning, Razvozov told Ynet that vacations in Israel are too expensive, but when asked what he intends to do about it, the minister refrained from giving away his plans.
“I have been in office for a week and a half,” he said. “I have a lot of information I need to process. The first decision was to stop the campaign and there will be more later.”
A press release issued Sunday night on behalf of Razvozov stated that “even before the Minister of Tourism took office, the Ministry of Tourism launched a campaign in the media that encourages vacations in Israeli cities. But since then, vacation prices have risen, in part because of the corona crisis, high costs, labor shortages, and restrictions on entry into Israel. Therefore, today the Minister of Tourism held professional talks in collaboration with the director general of his office, Amir Halevi, in which it was decided not to continue the campaign’s ads.”
The Tourism Ministry quoted Razvozov as saying, “I see no point in continuing a campaign when the cost of vacations is so high – it’s a shame to waste the taxpayer’s money on this. A vacation is not only for the rich. I intend to act urgently to take care of this matter.”
The Tourism minister stressed that he is a great believer in the free market and is aware of the fact that prices are impacted by supply and demand. He suggested that his office has an arsenal of tools at its disposal, to be used in collaboration with the hotel industry.
One of Razvozov’s plans would be to cut regulations on the industry, provided that the savings would go back to the taxpayers.