Israel's southernmost city, Eilat, with its tourism-based economy, was one of the worst-hit parts of the country when the coronavirus pandemic put an end to incoming and local tourism, with unemployment among the city's residents standing at some 70%.
A day before the Shavuot holiday began at the end of May, 12 of the city's hotels opened for business. Another 20 hotels gradually followed.
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Touring the city, a visitor can easily distinguish between locals and tourists. Locals are careful to uphold Health Ministry regulations designed to prevent the spread of coronavirus, while the tourists walk around with the feeling that the virus is a thing of the past.
"We've already gotten a few fines for customers who walk around here without masks. They don't care about us," says one woman who works at a souvenir stand on the beachfront.
Even while speaking to Israel Hayom, she stops to ask a customer to put on a mask. He waves her off dismissively.
"What can I do? I can't get into a fight with him," she says.
Another woman, who works in the dining room of one of the big Eilat hotels, says "there's a feeling that the customers are sure they've bought the hotel if they paid for a few nights. We're in tough times as it is, why behave like that? Just as long as they don't institute another shutdown. We won't make it through that, not mentally and not financially."
Residents are worried about a second wave that could hurt hotels and other local businesses. Liav Peled says that when the first wave was at its peak, "we saw empty stores, silent streets, it was terrible."
Despite the concern, the city is showing signs of recovery. Numbers from the Eilat Municipality indicate that since the hotels and pools reopened, some 150,000 Israeli tourists have visited. Haim Cohen- Akkad, director general of the Royal Beach Eilat, says that his hotel is at near-full occupancy until after the High Holidays.
"Israelis are happy to return to Eilat," Cohen-Akad says.
Eilat Deputy Mayor Eli Lankari says that "according to estimates, there will be 20-25% unemployment in the city, and all hotels will soon be open."
Meanwhile, some 700 workers from Jordan are scheduled to arrive in Eilat in the next few days to join the staff of hotels. Some city residents worry the workers will bring the virus with them, even though they are supposed to spend two weeks in quarantine before starting work. The hotels say they depend on Jordanian manpower.
Eilat Mayor Meir Yitzhak Halevi touches on the decision to bring Jordanian workers into Eilat: "The number of cases in Eilat is much lower than in the rest of the country. At the same time, it is very important to cut down on unemployment in the city, and to do so we have scheduled two job fairs."
Halevi stresses that "Unfortunately, Israeli workers were not willing to take the jobs that the Jordanian workers who are arriving in Israel will, and for that reason, we need to recruit workers from Jordan. For every Jordanian worker, we will hire five employees from the city, thanks to the hotel openings and additional employment opportunities in Eilat."
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