Prime Minister Bennett and the Ministers of Finance, Tourism and the Economy agreed today (Wednesday) on the aid package for the tourism industry, as part of tackling the Omicron strain. The decision is subject to government approval and will come to a vote soon. As you may recall, during a cabinet meeting earlier this week, Transport Minister Merav Michaeli said that the tourism industry should be “sacrificed” and Finance Minister Lieberman recommended that travel agents change professions.
At the center of the assistance package is an investment of up to NIS 30,000 in each employee from the tourism industry who chooses to join another occupation, in the industry or outside it. As part of the investment, all those engaged in the tourism industry will receive professional training at a cost of up to NIS 20,000 for training, with no occupancy limit and a state subsidy. Vocational training is intended for a wide range of professions in the high-tech, industrial and other employment fields. In addition, a monthly training scholarship of up to NIS 10,000 will be given, depending on the length of the training (up to 4 months), regardless of other sources of income (whatever they may be).
This assistance will benefit thousands of employees in the tourism industry, including tour guides and travel agents, whose occupation is affected by the change in entry guidelines to Israel. In order to help prepare for the changing situation, it was also decided to extend the number of state-guaranteed loan funds by a number of months from which all businesses in the economy can benefit.
Grants for hotels and support for guides
Meanwhile, hotels that have experienced a decrease of more than 40% in business turnover due to restrictions on the entry of tourists to Israel, will benefit from grants totaling about NIS 150 million that will be transferred over the coming months. In addition, the organizers of inbound tourism will be allocated resources to assist and support marketing activities, personnel retention and reimbursement of expenses in the total amount of NIS 60 million.
To assist the guides, the state will fund about 25,000 free tours for the public, for a fee of about 1,000 shekels per tour and a total of about 25 million shekels. The tours will be conducted through the Nature and Parks Authority and other government ministries. In addition to all this, and in order to produce immediate livelihood solutions, workers from the tourism industry will be able to be employed as corona trustees in the education system and as epidemiological researchers in local authorities, with a monthly salary of up to NIS 11,000.
Recall that in the last two years there has been a significant decrease in the number of tourists to Israel – while in 2019 about 4.5 million tourists entered Israel, in 2021 by November only about 370,000 tourists entered.
PM Bennett: “Our Line – Keeping the Economy Open”
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett referred to the agreements and said: “We stand by to help the people of the tourism industry in the difficult moments. The goal is to protect the health of Israeli citizens from the Omicron strain, while keeping the economy open and the economy as a series. Constant learning of the information and updating the steps accordingly. “
The Minister of Finance, Avigdor Lieberman, said: “Our directive was to invest first and foremost in employment – both through job creation and in training and routing to jobs that are so necessary for the economy. There are also many resources later on to enable a better life alongside the Corona. “
“The assistance package provides a horizon and an immediate economic solution for guides, tourism organizers, incoming tourism-based hotels, and other businesses from the tourism world that have been hit hard again by restrictions on entry and exit to Israel,” says Tourism Minister Yoel Rezbozov. “Many temporary jobs for the tourism workers until the tourists return to Israel and for all those who want to develop into the new fields.”
“The industry is one of the main victims of the Corona crisis and therefore we decided to address the industry’s workers through a variety of training and job creation while providing economic security during training and absorption into the labor market,” said Economy and Industry Minister Orna Barbibai.
Guides against the aid package: “A humiliating plan that will not help anyone”
“The Israeli government is doing a round of public relations at the expense of the workers in the tourism industry. There is no aid package here,” said the Moreshet Derech guide. “There is a sabotage of ridicule here, disrespect for people who sacrificed everything for the State of Israel and now the state is spitting in their face. The Ministry of Finance is trying to save money while misrepresenting an ‘aid plan’. The facts: The maximum shekels he can use for vocational training. The trainings are irrelevant and not applicable to owners of families and children. There is no safety net. “In order to survive. It’s a little wisdom to offer assistance that no one can afford when the refrigerator is empty.”
“The plan was announced without any discussion with us. All the numbers presented by the Ministry of Finance are wrong and biased: the tourism industry was eliminated by a government decision and not because of the Corona. Tourism to the Holy Land will never stop, but the hysterical and disproportionate policy of closing Ben Gurion Airport must stop. Neighboring countries make a good living from tourism that does not come to Israel. “If only the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister understood this, they would not dare to propose such a humiliating plan that it will not help anyone survive,” they added.
“We call on the Minister of Transport to stand behind her words and promote real assistance in place of the criminal fiction of the Ministry of Finance. We call on the Prime Minister to sit down with us so that we can explain to him once and for all what he does not understand: we are hungry for government policy, not because of the Corona. “And most of all: we demand compensation for their lost months of work caused solely by the Israeli government,” they concluded.
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