Low-cost airlines Wizz Air will start flying to the Israeli resort, Eilat, from the winter season of 2017. The line from Prague to Ovda International Airport will be available every Thursday from 2nd November. The airlines reported about this in a press release on Wednesday.
Czech is currently connected with Israel by the airlines Smart Wings, Wizz Air, and Israeli airlines El Al from Prague to Tel Aviv. Travel Service also flies to Tel Aviv from Karlovy Vary.
According to information from the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Czech Republic was visited by 168,638 Israeli citizens last year, which is 18.5% more compared with the previous year. By the number of overnight stays, Israel is right behind the Top 10 countries. Of the non-European countries, Israel is in the second place after the USA. Considering the length of stay, Israeli tourists, with an average 3.7 days, are in third place behind the visitors from Saudi Arabia and Russia.
Czechs do not fly to Israel much
Czech tourists are only of peripheral importance in Israel, with the total number of visitors accounting for only 0.6%. Last year only 17,337 Czechs visited Israel, and 1460 of them arrived only for a one-day trip from the resorts in the south of Egypt. The number of Czechs heading to Israel has stagnated lately – before 2010 it was around 20,000 a year.
According to the website of the Israeli Statistics Agency, 2.9 million tourists visited Israel last year; their number grew 3.5% from year to year. Tourism is one of the key elements of the Israeli economy.
Wizz Air has increased the number of the transported people to 7.2 million in the first half of the year. Revenue increased by 29% to 469 million euro (approximately 12.2 billion CZK) and the profit increased more than a half, to 58 million euro (1.5 billion CZK). The company offers more than ten direct lines from the Czech Republic, for example to London, Venezia or Rome. The company transported 476 thousand people on the lines from and to the Czech Republic during last year.