The Eilat Municipality will encourage new Israeli immigrants to begin their lives in the city and work in its hotel industry, the municipality announced earlier this week. The announcement from the Municipality noted the city's goals to serve as a model for employment-integrated immigrant absorption.
The municipality is collaborating with the Aliyah and Integration Ministry, the government, the Eilat employment agency, the Israel Hotel Association, and the Eilat Municipality.
The unique appeal of Eilat
Eilat is Israel’s southernmost city and holds a unique position, bordering both Egypt and Jordan. Another unique aspect of Eilat is that it is a free trade zone, meaning that shoppers are exempt from paying the country’s 17% value-added tax, according to Eilat’s official tourism website. This makes prices much more attractive than elsewhere in Israel.
The additional collaboration with the Aliyah and Integration Ministry will transform Eilat into a model for the absorption of new immigrants, focusing on employment, and aiming to further enhance Eilat's popularity as a tourist destination.
The city is already a popular tourist destination, and driving and busing to Eilat are possible from all major cities, according to Eilat’s tourism site. Eilat boasts a wide range of hotels by the beach, offering a variety of prices and accommodations.
Eilat's reliance on foreign labor
Due to the city's reliance on tourism as its primary industry, many foreign workers come to Eilat, primarily from the Philippines and Thailand. According to the Democracy Institute, beginning in 2006, thousands of undocumented migrants from Sudan and Eritrea entered Israel via the Sinai.
The Population and Immigration Authority made an announcement in November 2024 to help extend the permits of the Sudanese and Eritrean population already living in Eilat. However, the status and rights of African migrants in Israel and elsewhere are still relatively new and in flux.
The city of Eilat has ventured into creative efforts to stay afloat due to its labor shortage. Among those is an agreement in 2022 that allowed Jordanian workers to enter Eilat for specific jobs, such as those in the hotel industry, as announced by the Foreign Ministry in July 2022.
Due to Eilat’s labor shortage and reliance on foreign labor, a new framework is being developed between employment services and the hotel association to make hotel work more attractive to Israeli workers, as well as to increase the recruitment of employees for the tourism sector, shopping centers, restaurants, and other related industries.
Possible solutions being raised
Among alternative paths raised, according to the announcement from the city’s municipality, were employment tracks that would ensure career advancement opportunities for workers, such as courses and training that would advance their career potential. The program would also include a commitment to a period of work, and training paths in other fields would be offered.
The effort is designed to transform Eilat into a model city for immigrant absorption through work incentives that are complemented by other forms of support, such as Hebrew language courses and housing.
What's ahead for Eilat
The CEO of the Israel Hotel Association, Ronit Gadlia, mentioned that the sector is capable of developing a managerial tier and will offer both professional and managerial jobs. The hotel industry in Eilat is the largest employer, and to attract more employees, it will start providing subsidized training and housing for new immigrants.
These benefits will be in addition to the benefits package provided by the Aliyah and Integration Ministry and the community support offered by the city of Eilat to immigrants.
The ministry praised the city for its role in absorbing immigrants. Since 1989, the city has absorbed 17,000 immigrants, with 6,000 of them arriving in the last decade and still eligible for the benefits package. Most of the 6,000 are from the former Soviet Union.