TOURISM SECTOR:

Tourism may be defined as the business of providing access to places and sites that are attractive for reasons of history, religion, leisure, pleasure, shopping, climate etc. This includes the arrangements of tours, transport, accommodation and hotels, restaurants, centres of relaxation, providing guides access to sites etc. , and involves close cooperation between government (policy, standards, promotion etc) and the private sector.

Bethlehem’s comparative advantage in tourism rests solely in its unique religious sites, particularly for the Christian world.

The holy places with their historical buildings and archaeological sites the natural resources of the Governorate and the developing urban society are an asset for the growth of tourism in the city.

Historical sites in Bethlehem region:

• The Herodium
• Solomons’s Pools
• Khretoun
• Qumran
• Tequo’a
• King David’s Wells.

Solomon's Pools:
Solomon's Pools are located about three kilometers south of Bethlehem. The three pools are each over 100 meters long and 10 meters deep. They are fed by four different springs mainly by Ein Atan. Five different aqueducts were linked to Solomon's Pools: one acqueduct carried water east to the Herodium and two others brought water to Jerusalem. The name of Solomon continned to be associated with them as there is a general belief that the pools were originally constructed by King Solomon. On the north side at the entry of the park is a small Turkish fortress known as Qalat el-Burak or the Castle of the Pools. It has served at times as a resting place for caravans.

Wadi Khretoun:
It is located 2 km south east of Herodium and near the village of Tequ'a. Khirbet Khreitoun is the ruin of the Laura of Souka founded about 330 A.D. by St. Chariton and in which he died. Round of shoulder of the valley is the Grotto of St. Chariton. This vast cavern has many chambers and a series of galleries and extremely low passages. One of these chambers looks like a great cathedral. The explorer should provide himself with a flashlight and a rope., otherwise he might easily lose his way.

Khirbet Qumran:
After 3 kilometers on the track which leads to Ain Feshkha, near the Dead Sea another track goes off to the right to a small hill called Khirbet Qumran which today is a word, world wide known on account of the manuscripts of the Bible discovered in the caves near by. Qumran began as a fortress in the iron age. It was occupied in the 2nd century B.C. by a religious body known as the Essenes. A century later they abandoned the place after the great earthquake of 31 B.C. . About 4 B.C. this sect returned and restored the damaged buildings. In 68 A.D. the place was plundered by the Roman legions and many of its inhabitants massacred. At the approach of the Romans, the Essenes hurriedly hid their most valued possession, their library, in the nearby caves. Remains of more than 400 different scrolls have been so far identified. In 1947 two Bedouin shepherds discovered accidentally a little cave high up on the side of a cliff overlooking the Dead Sea, about a mile from the ruins of Khirbet Qumran: they found in the cave nine jars one of which contained three sheepskin scrolls. Part of the scrolls were first sold in Bethlehem and were later eventually sold to the Hebrew University and the rest to the Assyriac superior of St. Mark's Convent in Jerusalem who took them to America. Excavation of Khirbet Qumran began in 1951. In 1952, the Bedouins discovered the largest quantity of manuscripts in a cave a mere 100 meters from the ruins of Qumran.

Khirbet Tequo'a:
A track from the south end of the town of Beit Sahour brings the visitor to Tequo'a, a little distance from Wadi Khreitoun. Tequo'a was a canaanite town built on a lovely hill. It was the home of that wise woman that effected a reconciliation between David and Absalom It is distinguished as having been the birthplace of the prophet Amos who, according to tradition, he was buried here. He was a country yokel who gave us in his writing a fine description of the social and religious conditions of his time, about 786 B.C. .
The whole hill is covered with stones and it takes some time to recognize the remains of a church and a monastery on the top of the hill. The region extending to the Dead Sea bears the name of the Desert of Tequo'a.
The Christian inhabitants of Tequo'a migrated to Bethlehem in the 18th century. Today it is a Moslem village famous for its vegetable produce. Nearby there is a recently built Jewish settlement named Tequo'a.

King David's Wells:
Three great cisterns, excavated in the rock, are known as ' David's Wells ', which tradition identified with " the cistern that is in Bethlehem at the gate" from which David longed to drink during a battle with the Philistines ( 2 Sam. 23.15 ). To the east of these cisterns was discovered in 1895 a mosaic pavement of a church of the 5th or 6th century, with a Greek incription. The church rested on a vast necropolis. The cemetry was Christian as proved by the inscriptions. The cisterns are located in Ras Eftais, an eastren sector of Bethlehem. The Catholic Action Club lies on the site of one of the cisterns .

History can be of advantage to the development of tourism, since the historical image and fame of Bethlehem as an old city has and will attract future investments and tourism especially on the eve of the coming celebration of the Millennium which on December 4th 1999 a grant inaugural event to launch the Millennium Celebrations of Bethlehem 2000.