A total of 173,000 passengers, including more than 90,000 foreign tourists, are scheduled to land in the country's Ben Gurion international airport, near Tel Aviv, according to a statement from the national airport authority.
The authority predicted that 631 flights were due to land and 624 were to take off.
The association of Israeli hoteliers, meanwhile, reported that it had 90 percent occupancy levels in Jerusalem and Nazareth, the Galilee town where Jesus grew up, as well as in the Red Sea resort city of Eilat.
Many Israelis head for the balmy climes of Eilat to celebrate Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, which begins on Monday and ends on January 3.
Tourism minister Avraham Hirchson said earlier this week that the number of visitors to Israel had risen by 28 percent in the past 12 months and should pass the 2 million mark by the end of the year.
The figures are still sharply down on the 2.6 million who came in 2000 before the Palestinian uprising plunged tourism into freefall.
The tourist industry in the West Bank is also showing tentative signs of a revival, with a number of hotels reopening in Jesus' birthtown of Bethlehem for the first time in years.
© 2005 Agence France-Presse
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