AMMAN — Israel has announced plans to turn
the lowest place on earth, the
Dead Sea, into one of the hottest tourist
destinations on the planet, the Times of Israel reported on Sunday. It said
Israel has been inspired by two places already drawing millions of visitors a
year: the Maldives and Dubai.
اضافة اعلان
The paper added that plans for a raft of new hotels
along the Dead Sea will seek to revamp tourism in the region and remake the
coastline with a series of manmade islands, peninsulas and inlets — plus a
tropical-style property featuring guest cottages perched on stilts in the sea —
to extend it and put more tourists on the water.
It said that
Israeli officials see boosting Dead Sea
tourism as key to reaching the goal of 10 million visitors a year by 2030. With
the sea rapidly shrinking, leaving former beachside resorts kilometers from
shore and turning the former coastline into a dangerous expanse of sinkholes,
tourism efforts are focused on the massive evaporation ponds south of the Dead
Sea, where most of the large hotels in the area are already located.
The ponds, which are filled with water from the Dead
Sea and used by ICL (formerly Israel Chemicals Ltd.) for potash, bromine, and
magnesium mining, are generally marketed as part of the sea, and few tourists
are aware that they are actually floating in an industrial site.
The scheme aims to double tourist accommodation at
the Dead Sea by adding 4,000 to 5,000 rooms along an extended promenade by
2026, filling in much of the remaining open space, the paper added.
Seven hotel tenders have been awarded, out of 17
eventual projects, and Israel’s tourism ministry has already invested more than
$344 million extending the promenade along the shoreline southwards, and
building the new landforms.
Promoters say three islands are being built as part
of the development, but published plans only show a single landform — still
technically connected to land — that might be classified as one.
The island, which is already built, will be home to
a massive dome that will be used as a 5,000-person capacity exposition center
with world-class amenities and 360-degree projection lighting, according to the
paper.
The island is connected to a jetty jutting out into
the sea, which will feature a hotel and a spa, according to published plans.
Bercleys Papo, which is also building two towers
with guest accommodations and luxury condos as part of the project, says the
dome is being shipped into the country nearly complete and will be up and
running within six months.
Elsewhere in the project, a hotel is slated to be
built that will mimic the Maldives’ famous guest cottages on stilts right over
the water, connected to each other and the land by a boardwalk.
Though not included in the current project, an area master
plan includes another manmade peninsula sticking into the lake where another
hotel will sit, the paper added.
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