On Israeli channel 2 they recently talked about a ‘new’ phenomena happening all around Israel. Many vacation attraction sites that used to be open for business on Shabbat started closing for Shabbat and found they are actually getting more customers.
How can it be? Channel 2 explains that Shabbat observers try to stay away from non-Shabbat observant attractions. This coupled with the phenomena that many non-religious Jews end up flying abroad for their vacations. This means the non-religious are spending less money in Israel on these Israeli vacation attraction sites. The result is a growing percent of customers for local vacation attractions are Shabbat observant. When a site decides to close its doors to business on Shabbat they immediately start to get the religious Shabbat observant public as their customers which is a whole new market they didn’t have previously.
Channel 2 interviewed Yaron and Liraz Mark who own ‘Indi Park’ who explained that when they decided to make Shabbat their day of rest: “We got back our father and husband anew and enjoyed a tremendous spike in business. Up to now we’d have 150-200 visitors a day on the average and today it’s up to 1,500 every day! We consider this a great success!”
Benjamin Halevy Gan-Or who own “Extreme Park Akko” talked of a similar turnaround. “Just 2 months ago I started closing for Shabbat and I found the influence of the religious public to be immediate. We feel it at the cash register and from all the positive feedback.”
Yariv Hameiri from ‘Galilee Treasures’ says the profits are great: “It doesn’t matter if you have a fun day for hundreds of workers or a group of 50 people the religious public doesn’t consider a non-Shabbat observant attraction site a relevant viable option and this is where the profits grow for those who keep Shabbat!”
We know that there's also blessing in keeping Shabbat that affects a person's whole life and successes. Let's tap into that blessing by keeping the Shabbat!