Due to the location of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest (Tel Aviv), multiple activist organisations have called for a boycott. However, multiple celebrities have turned against this proposal, including Sharon Osbourne and Scooter Braun.
Together with over a hundred celebrities, they have signed a letter which is meant to decry the boycott efforts. The letter is organized by non-profit Creative Community for Peace (CCFP). According to them, the cries for a boycott are an attack on the Eurovision’s ‘’spirit of togetherness’’: “Those calling to boycott Eurovision 2019…[are] subverting the spirit of the contest and turning it from a tool of unity into a weapon of division”.
Hotel prices in Tel Aviv plummet
After Tel Aviv was announced as host city for Eurovision 2019, the hotel prices skyrocketed proportionally. In some cases, hotel rooms became 1000% more expensive due to the anticipation of a growth in tourism by 20.000 tourists during Eurovision month in Tel Aviv.
Now it seems that the predictions are far from feasible: thousands of tickets remain unsold. In response to this, multiple hotels are lowering their prices. In the case of Hotel Rothschild 22, some prices for the Eurovision weekend have decreased over 50%. Regardless, the average hotel prices for the season are still 20-30% higher than usual. It also been reported that the average flight prices to Tel Aviv are lower than usual, suggesting a low level of demand.
