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Israel's prime minister has given his backing to a multi-million pound marketing drive to attract tourists to the country.

Ehud Olmert met with cabinet ministers to discuss tourism in Israel and heard a request from the tourism minister for $150m (£79m) to be invested over the next three years.

Isaac Herzog is reported to have asked the prime minister to make $50m (£26m) available every year until 2009 in order to promote Israel as a tourist destination, reports the Jerusalem Post.

A Tourism Ministry official has revealed that the proposed marketing programme will be put before the cabinet and the Knesset (Israel's legislature) for approval.

'A continuing long-term marketing plan must be created as a means to increase the number of tourists to Israel,' said Prime Minister Olmert.

'This requires a greater investment by the government and I therefore request that the Tourism and Finance Ministries work together to develop such a program,' he added.

Tourism officials in the country have expressed their relief that the government is talking about boosting tourism, but some remain sceptical of seeing an improvement.

'I am happy that the government finally had a discussion on the crisis in the tourism industry,' said Eli Gonen, president of the Israel Hotels Association.

'However, now the government must produce the results. Everyone in the industry expects to see the allocation of sufficient funds that can be used to market Israel immediately in order to stop the crisis and prevent further layoffs.'

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