Israel’s robust tourism windfall from India continues and is poised to gain even more momentum in the coming months with the addition of new capacity on both New Delhi-Tel Aviv and Mumbai-Tel Aviv routes operated by Air India (AI) and Israeli flag carrier El Al (LY) respectively. According to the latest available data with Israel tourism office in India, Israel has received 48,800 Indian visitors for January-September period in 2018, recording a robust 22 % growth over the same period last year. Israel tourism is eyeing an ambitious 80,000 to 100,000 visitors Indian visitors in 2018.
Come November 26, AI that was operating four weekly services on the Delhi-Tel Aviv route will make one more addition to its weekly services taking the total to five flights a week in light of growing demand for Israel as a tourist destination in India. The carrier launched Delhi-Tel Aviv route in March this year and has steadily seen the load factor on the route grow from about 60 per cent in the beginning to well over 80 per cent by June. There are reports that the airline is planning to eventually start operating daily on the route sometime soon.
Commenting on the enhanced air connectivity between the two country, Hassan Madah, Director – India & Philippines, Israel Ministry of Tourism, said, “Now that we have more capacity on the route so more people would be flying. I think the growth should be more than what we have seen so far. I think we should reach between 80,000 to 100,000 people.”
Furthermore, Madah said, “Outbound from India is growing and so is it growing for Israel also. But at the same time we are very pushy in our campaigns and promotions in India and trying to take whatever we can. I think we can reach this number.”
Israeli carrier LY that has been flying to India for almost 20 years has also last week deployed the bigger four-class configuration 279 seat Boeing 777-200 ER aircraft in place of the smaller 767 on the Mumbai-Tel Aviv route. The move by the carrier has been attributed to the growing demand and competition on the route. “Growing demand and competition has influenced El Al to not only bring the prices down but also to upgrade their aircraft on this route to Boeing 777-200 ER.
Israel received 48,800 Indian visitors for Jan-September period this year, registering a strong 22 per cent growth over the same period last year and 58 per cent growth over the January-September period in 2016. In 2017 Israel received 40100 Indian visitors for the similar period registering a robust over 30 percent growth in Indian arrivals over the same period in 2016 when it received 30,800 India visitors.
