ISRAEL OUTBOUND TOURISM
MARKET RESEARCH REPORTS
BY DR. ERAN KETTER

Israel is a major travel source market in the EMEA region, with a significant importance to tourism destinations in Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. As of 2025, Israel’s outbound tourism demonstrates high level of resilience and recovers well from the Gaza war, while inbound tourism to Israel still lags behind.

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Israel tourism statistics for 2024 and 2025

• In January-August 2025, Israeli travelers have taken over 6 million outbound trips, up by 27% over 2024, and only 15% below pre-war travel in 2023. This high level of bounce back demonstrates the resilience of outbound tourism from Israel and is likely to reach record number of travelers once the war will come to an end. 

• At the same time, only 814,000 inbound tourists visited Israel in January-August 2025, up by 27% over 2024, and down by 68% compared to 2023 tourism numbers. As this tourism statistics indicate, inbound tourism to Israel is badly affected by the ongoing war. 

• The top 5 first destinations for flights to/ from TLV in January-August 2025 were Greece, US, UAE, Cyprus, and Italy. Among the destinations recording the highest level of growth in Israeli outbound travel are the UAE (+87%), Hungary (+47%), Italy (+45%), and Bulgaria (+35%). This list of destinations has changed dramatically from before the war, resulting from changes in outbound travel demand patterns of Israeli tourists, changes in the aviation market, and other key decision-making factors.

• Resulting from airline flight cancellations to Israel due to the war, the share of Israeli carriers in TLV surged from 35% in 2023 to 62% in Januray-August 2025. The top 5 airlines in flying to/ from Israel in these months were El Al, Israir, Arkia, WizzAir, and Blue Bird Airways.

 

Israel: A key regional source market

In recent years Israel has been a key outbound travel market for numerous destinations, and Israel is considered as one of the top 3 outside-of-Europe tourism source markets for Europe. In 2023, Israelis have taken 9 million outbound trips, and outbound tourism from Israel is expected to exceed this number once the war will come to its end. Resulting from Israel’s geographic location, 92% of these trips were made by air. The top 5 first destinations for flights to/ from Israel in 2023 (before the war) were Turkey, USA, Greece, Italy and UK. The top 5 airlines serving Israel in 2023 were El Al, Wizzair, Ryanair, Turkish Airlines and Israir.

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Israel tourism recovery from the Gaza war

Despite the negative effect of the war in Gaza (Swords of Iron) on outbound travel from Israel, Israel's outbound travel market demonstrates a strong recovery, and 2025 outbound tourism statistics are only 15% below its pre-war performance. This include an increased desire for emotional wellness and stress relief tourism (soft travel), and surge in interest for short and medium haul destinations that are welcoming for tourists from Israel.

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Market research report on Israel outbound tourism

What are the key characteristics of Israel’s outbound travel market? How can a tourism destination (DMO)/ National Tourism Board (NTO) / hotel effectively attract tourists from Israel? Which travel segments in Israel are the most open to explore new destinations? What are the key tourism decision making factors for Israeli travelers? And which marketing communication channels are the most effective when targeting travelers from Israel?

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Our team of experts is offering tourism market research reports on Israel outbound travel market, Israel outbound tourism trends, Israel tourism statistics, Israel tourism demographics and travel segments, consumer behavior of Israel outbound tourists, Israel outbound tourism consumer preferences, tourism demand analysis, and analysis of the travel and tourism industry in Israel and its economic performance. The tourism market research reports can cover Israel outbound travel market as a whole, or focus on a specific market segment, activity or travel passion.

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Market research methodologies to analyze Israel outbound tourism

Our market research work on outbound tourism from Israel is based on:

• Analysis of market data, tourism statistics and aviation statistics

• Social media sentiment analysis/ social media listening (in Hebrew/ Arabic/ English)

• In-depth interviews with tourism stakeholders

• Focus groups with Israeli outbound travelers

• Survey/ online panel of Israeli travelers

• Our team’s knowledge, experience and in-depth understating of the Israeli culture, tourism demand patterns of Israelis and consumer behavior factors of Israeli travelers.

 

Why conduct market research on Israel tourism with us?

Eran Ketter (PhD) is an acclaimed tourism advisor and researcher, and a former marketing advisor to the Israeli Ministry of Tourism. He is the author of numerous tourism strategy and market research reports, and since 2020 he is the Head of Research in a European Travel Commission market research serious on measuring Europeans’ travel sentiment, conducting surveys for over 100,000 Europeans and providing marketing recommendations and insights for 35 national tourism organizations around Europe (with Mindhaus). Dr. Ketter has a unique in-depth understanding of Israel’s travel and tourism market, based on his rich professional experience working with the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority, Jerusalem Tourism Development Corporation and numerous DMOs, tourism organizations, tourism entrepreneurs and travel-tech startups in Israel.

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