From the Prime Minister’s Office:
The Cabinet will, on Sunday, 29.5.11 [May 29, 2011], at the Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem, hold a festive meeting to mark Jerusalem Day. At this meeting, the Cabinet is due to approve the multi-year Merom Plan, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is advancing in cooperation with the Jerusalem Municipality and the Jerusalem Development Authority. The goal of the plan is to economically strengthen the capital city via two main growth engines. The first is to invest NIS 145.5 million [$41.9 million] in strengthening Jerusalem as a tourist city. The second is to invest NIS 71.4 million [$20.5 million] in strengthening the city a center of research, development and bio-technology industry. A further NIS 70.5 million [$20.3 million] will be invested in additional complementary measures to develop the city economically. Thus, the budget for the 2011-2016 Merom Plan will stand at almost NIS 290 million [$83.6 million]. A designated budget will be approved each year by a steering committee in keeping with the pace of implementation, the budget law and the outline of the Plan. In addition to the Merom Plan’s budgetary framework, the Tourism Ministry will allocate NIS 75 million [$21.6 million] to encourage hotel construction in Jerusalem. The goal is to increase the supply of hotel rooms in the capital and enable it to attract millions of tourists per annum.
The full press release is here. I would note that building more hotel rooms may only decrease the quality of the experience of visiting Jerusalem.
