A whopping 93% of tourists who visited Israel in 2018 rated their experience as "good to excellent," according to the annual Israel Tourism Ministry Inbound Tourism Survey.
Among the 15,000 tourists surveyed, 53.2% said their views on Israel improved during their visit, with just 1.5% saying their view changed for the worse. Another 41% said their opinion of Israel stayed the same.
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The 25-44 age group was the largest at 35.8% of visitors, followed by ages 55 and over and 24 and under.
The visitors were predominantly Christian (54.9%), followed by Jews (27.5%). Among the Christian tourists, the largest denomination was Catholic.
Jerusalem was the most visited city in the country, with 77.5% of visitors arriving in the capital, followed by Tel Aviv at second place with 67.4%, followed by the Dead Sea region and Tiberias.
Jerusalem is also home to three of the top four most visited sites: the Western Wall (71.6%) the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (52.2%) and the Via Dolorosa (47.4%). The Old City of Jaffa also made the list at 50.1%.
Tel Aviv Port was ranked the best-maintained site in Israel by 31.3% of tourists, followed by Masada and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
While the average tourist spent $1,421 during their visit in 2017, that number dipped slightly in 2018 to $1,402. Nonetheless, the overall boost of tourism to Israel's economy last year was NIS 21 billion (over $5.9 billion), not including airfare.
"The year 2018 was a record year for incoming tourism to Israel, with more than 4 million tourists," said Tourism Minister Yariv Levin. "The constant increase in incoming tourism is a result of the ministry's new marketing strategy, and we see a continuation of this upward momentum in 2019."
