ISRAEL TOURISM
PLAN SET TO TRANSFORM DEAD SEA TOURISM
million visitors a year by 2030. With the sea rapidly shrinking, leaving former beachside resorts miles from shore and turning the former coastline into a dangerous expanse of sinkholes, tourism efforts are focused on the massive evaporation ponds south of the Dead Sea, where most of the large hotels in the area
are generally marketed as part of the sea, and few tourists are aware that they are actually floating in an industrial site. The scheme aims to double tourist accommodation at the Dead Sea by adding 4,000 to 5,000 rooms along an extended promenade by 2026, filling in much of the remaining open land between Ein Bokek, at the northern tip of the ponds, and Neve Zohar, about 3.5 kilometers (2.2 miles) south. Seven hotel tenders have been awarded, out of 17 eventual projects, and
Guest villas on stilts à la Maldives, spits of land reaching into the sea with a large expo dome, plus rooms along artificial inlets
I srael’s plans to turn the lowest place on earth into one of the hottest tourist destinations on the planet will see the country taking inspiration from two places already drawing millions of visitors a year: the Maldives and Dubai. Plans for a raft of new hotels along the Dead Sea will seek to revamp tourism in the region and
remake the coastline, with a series of manmade islands, peninsulas and inlets — plus a tropical-style property featuring guest cottages perched on stilts in the sea — in the works to extend the coastline and put more tourists than ever right on the water. Israeli officials see boosting Dead Sea tourism as key to reaching the goal of 10
are already located. The ponds, which are
filled with water from the Dead Sea and used by ICL (formerly Israel Chemicals Ltd.) for potash, bromine and magnesium mining,
40 • www.itn.co.il
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