40%+ Surge in Pilgrims to Israel

43-percent surge in Christian pilgrims
The Jerusalem Post

By ETGAR LEFKOVITS

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Christian tourism to Israel has increased by 17 percent since Pope John Paul II visited nine years ago, the Tourism Ministry said on Thursday.

Nearly 1.8 million of the 3 million tourists who came to Israel last year were Christians, the ministry said. In 2000, 1.5 million Christians came.

The number of Christian visitors from Eastern Europe and Africa was up dramatically in 2008 compared to 2000, while the figures for Western Europe and Asia fell.

Meanwhile, there was a 40% increase in Christians from the United States visiting Israel last year compared to the year 2000, while there were fewer visitors from Latin America, including a 64% drop from Argentina and 37% decrease from Mexico.

Last year, more than a million incoming tourists defined themselves as Catholic, 300,000 as Protestant, 360,000 as "other Christian," and 75,000 as Evangelicals, according to the Tourism Ministry statistics that were released during a tour of Christian holy sites in Nazareth ahead of the Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the Holy Land next month.

Meanwhile, the number of Christian visitors who defined themselves as pilgrims shot up a whopping 43% over the last eight years, with more than one million in 2008 - more than half of the Christian visitors - calling themselves pilgrims.

The pope will visit the Holy Land between May 11 and 15, with stops that will include Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth.

The ministry hopes the papal visit will be an impetus to further increase Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Land, as was the case in the months after John Paul's visit in 2000. Last year was a record year for tourism to Israel.