Travelers at the Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv on April 18, 2021. Photo: Yossi Aloni/Flash90.

JNS.org – The number of tourists entering Israel last month was more than double that of September 2020 and around half the number in the same month in 2019, the Tourism Ministry reported on Wednesday.

According to the ministry, there were 34,500 tourist entries in September 2021, constituting a 128 percent increase as compared with September 2020 and a 91.5 percent decrease from September of the previous year, prior to the outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

The government is working on a plan to allow individual vaccinated tourists to visit Israel from the beginning of November, the ministry said, in order to rehabilitate the tourism industry and ensure that the hundreds of thousands of people working in it can earn a living. As of now, only groups of vaccinated tourists—and individuals who receive special permission—have been allowed to enter the country.

The ministry did not specify conditions for considering visitors “fully vaccinated,” such as the need to have received a booster shot or a requirement of quarantine upon arrival.