17 Dec 2020; MEMO: The UAE's tourism hotspot Dubai has witnessed a "remarkable tourism boom in the past two weeks" with more than 50,000 Israelis making the journey to visit it, the Washington Post reported on Monday.
"More than 50,000 Israelis have brushed aside covid-19 concerns, a terrorism warning and decades of tension to make the three-hour flight across the Arab Peninsula," the newspaper said, adding that Israelis had caused a "remarkable tourism boomlet" in the Gulf nation.
Israeli tourism officials, the US-based newspaper pointed out, were expecting "more than 70,000 Israelis" to arrive during "the eight days of Hanukkah festival, which began last week."
"The ties look to be a boon to the UAE's tourism industry and potentially worth billions of US dollars in potential foreign investment in high-tech, agriculture and arms," the newspaper noted.
Israeli health ministry officials say that "at least 240 Israelis would contract coronavirus after returning to Israel from the UAE." The ministry said earlier that 1,658 Israelis who visited the UAE in November had tested positive for the virus.
The UAE and Israel signed a normalisation deal in September, a month after US President Donald Trump announced the agreement as part of what was dubbed the "Abraham Accords".
