The Ministry of Tourism announced Monday that it will pay grants to Israeli hotels hit by the lack of incoming tourism and the economic impact of the COVID 19 pandemic.
The ministry is providing up to NIS 300 million in three installments. The recipients will also include small hotels with 11 rooms or more, the ministry said.
“The tourism industry, which has suffered a severe blow, is in need of a grant for the losses suffered due to the closure of tourism,” Israel Minister of Tourism, Orit Farkash-Hacohen said in a statement.
“When I took office, I initiated an amendment to the regulations related to the NIS 300 million hotel assistance already approved in the first wave, so that small hotels, even if they had received property tax rebates, would still be able to benefit from the grant money.
“Now we are publishing the outline regarding distribution. I invite hoteliers, from large and small hotels, to submit their application and get the support they need.”
The government decided in August this year that the Ministry of Tourism would allocate grants, up to NIS 300 million, from June 2020 to May 2021. This, to preserve the hotel infrastructure in Israel during the crisis period and ensure its continued existence for the post-crisis period.
Even though the decision was taken in August, the grants have yet to be distributed due to disagreements related to the conditions for receiving compensation.
With the entry of Farkash-Hacohen into office, Israel Hotel Association President Amir Hayek asked the Tourism Minister to amend the distribution regulations, which conditioned the grant on non-receipt of compensation or property tax rebate. The request was made to mitigate the wide-ranging damage caused by the crisis and to distribute the grants appropriately to those business owners, small and large, who have been harmed by the crisis.
Tourism Ministry Director-General Amir Halevi expressed his gratitude to the professional team of senior ministry representatives who he said “toiled over the details of this directive over the last few months so that we could implement it and give an answer to the industry that has been hit so hard.”
For the purposes of the directive, a hotel facility will be defined as one comprising at least 11 rooms, which provides paid accommodation services for guests and for limited periods of time, as well as ancillary services including catering, recreation and leisure services, the ministry said.
The directive includes, among other things, threshold conditions and criteria for receiving the grants and will be divided into three installments:
- The first installment: assistance for the months June-July 2020
- Second installment: assistance for the months Aug.-Dec. 2020
- Third installment: assistance for the months Jan.-May 2021