'Our vision is to create a unique experience in tune with the unique significance of the lowest point on earth'. With manmade islands and jetties, new hotel plan set to transform Dead Sea tourism
The expanded resort complex being built at the Dead Sea in Israel in September 2022 (Image courtesy: Moshe Safdie Architects)
(TIMES OF ISRAEL) — Israel’s plans to turn the lowest place on earth into one of the hottest tourist destinations on the planet will see the country taking inspiration from two places already drawing millions of visitors a year: the Maldives and Dubai.
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 — in the works to extend the coastline and put more tourists than ever right on the water.
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 miles 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 hotels will be the first new ones in the area in some 30 years, according to Shimon Daniel, CEO of the Dead Sea Preservation Government Company, a Tourism Ministry clearinghouse for Dead Sea development.
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.