The Tourism Sector:
Jericho the town of moon, the city of palms or Antony s gift to Cleopatra – is one of the oldest cities of the world ten thousands years before the Christ. The excavations have proven that the primitive man turned to be a settled one and from a hunter to a farmer. Jericho contains around 80 religious, touristic and ancient ruined sites, including Hisham Palace, Old Jericho (Tel Sultan), Mount of Temptation, Old Churches, The Dead Sea, The River Jordan and the place of Baptism.

A large sector of the residents in the Jericho Governorate rely on tourism as an essential source of income, as Jericho enjoys great touristic constituents. The large number of historical, ancient, religions and natural sites and the medicinal tourist areas as well as its wonderful weather, its fantastic nature, its quality services and the colourful recreation means made Jericho focus of attraction as far as internal and external investors are concerned. The town attracted the largest local and international tourism companies to establish five star hotels as well as other touristic utilities. In 1996, investors found Jericho a suitable place to invest in. The size of new investments in tourism sector since 1997 up till now exceeded 180 million US dollars. New hotels were founded to cope with the ever increasing numbers of tourists coming to Jericho, thanks to its religions, historical, natural, medicinal, recreational sites.

The tourism movement accelerates in the Governorate in February and March every year since 500.000 tourists visit the area yearly. The large number of visitors whether internally especially the schools in the after math of inaugurating several public parks or internationally forms an important income of hard currency. The fact that tourism is more active in winter reflects positively in prospering the economy of the town and even the Governorate. One of the most serious problems that limit the growth of tourism is the borders and the crossing points which is still unfortunately under the Israeli control. The Palestinian touristic sites are not placed on the Israeli routs. Instead the foreigner visitors are directed to Israeli positions which badly affects the Palestinian touristic source of income.