The Tourism Ministry is continuing to expand the hotel supply in Israel. The Investments Administration in the Tourism Ministry recently approved 13 grant requests to restore and convert 13 hotels in Jerusalem, Ashkelon, Acre, Haifa, Nahariya, Kfar Choresh, Tiveria and Kibbutz Ein Gev. This will add another 470 rooms to the existing hotel supply in Israel. The overall cost of the investment: about 153 million NIS. The total amount of the grants allocated: 34.5 million NIS. During 2012, the Investments Administration approved grants of about 200 million NIS.

A new hotel will be built in Ashkelon – after a return to routine in the South and a hiatus of many years in hotel construction. The hotel will be built on an abandoned building on the seashore that served as a hotel decades ago. The entrepreneur will invest 15 million NIS in building a 50 room hotel. The expansion of the hotel by 100 rooms in an adjacent hotel is already in the planning stage.

The Casino building in Haifa will be converted into an A-standard hotel with 54 rooms, at a cost of 21 million NIS. The Casino building operated mainly in the 1930s as the entertainment and leisure center for residents of the Bat Galim neighborhood.

The Investments Administration also approved a grant for converting 64 rooms in the holiday village near Kfar Choresh and Nazareth, which extends over 40 dunams, at an investment of over 31 million NIS. A total of 85 holiday units are scheduled to be built in the village (including 10 suites), which already offers spa facilities.

In Jerusalem and Tiveria, cities which are eligible for grants of up to 28% of the overall investment, six grant allocations received approval, with a combined overall investment of more than 47 million NIS. Among the projects: conversion of the Leonardo Hotel near the Quiet Beach in Tiveria; conversion of a kindergarten in the YMCA on King David Street in Jerusalem to 21 guest rooms and their annexation to the Three Arches Hotel that operates within the building and the addition of another 47 guest rooms in the Strand Hotel in East Jerusalem following the conversion of office space at an investment of about 12 million NIS.

The hotel supply is also increasing in the western Galil, with the approval of the addition of 17 rooms in a conversion of a building reserved for an A standard hotel in the Old City of Acre. In Nahariya, a grant for converting the Sol Marine Hotel with 40 suites (A-standard) at an investment of 17 million NIS was approved.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)