Over Half a Million Christian Pilgrims to Visit Holy Land this Christmas

By Christian Today

The number of Christian tourists expected to visit Israel this Christmas is expected to total around one million – a number that represents a 30 percent increase from the previous year.

Half of the Christian tourists – around 60,000 – are expected to be pilgrims, according to reports. The Israeli Tourism Ministry says the number of pilgrims is around 50 percent higher than in 2006.

Currently both the Israeli and the Palestinian Tourism Ministries and the Israeli police are making efforts to make travel for pilgrims from Jerusalem to Bethlehem and Nazareth as smooth as possible, according to local media reports.

The Israeli Tourism Ministry is also working with the Israel Airports Authority to make entry into Israel easier due to the large number of expected tourists arriving at the Ben Gurion Airport and at the Taba and Allenby crossings.

According to Raji Khoury of Jerusalem-based Shepherds Tours, which organizes Christian pilgrimages, business in the Holy Land has improved since dipping after Israel’s war in Lebanon last year.

”[Business] was so good until the Lebanese war,” he told U.K.-based Christian Today earlier this year. “It went down as if we started [at zero] in 2000 again. Now it’s picked up; now it’s really good in 2007.”

Evangelical Christians compose one-third of American tourists visiting Israel – second only to American Jews – and have poured billions of dollars into the country over the past 20 years.