After telling Romania’s Ioana Isac, the 3 millionth visitor to Israel this year, and her companion that their designated tour guide wasn’t available and a substitute would show them David’s Tower Museum in Jerusalem, Tourism Minister Yariv Levin introduced the couple to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, surprising both.

The couple, had been greeted with a red carpet and balloons at Ben Gurion International airport when they arrived and were later taken to a hotel by the Dead Sea and given a helicopter tour of the country, The Jerusalem Post reported Tuesday.

“This is a special day and a historic milestone as we break the 3 million-tourist barrier and set a new all-time record,” Levin said commemorating the milestone. “Half a million tourists who came to us this year are half a million more ambassadors of Israel in the world. I am happy with the achievements that we in the Tourism Ministry are seeing, as a result of the huge investment that we are making in marketing Israel around the world, and our exceptional collaborations with airlines and the connections that we maintain and strengthen with tour operators. All these are bearing fruit and have added about NIS 17 billion and thousands of jobs to the local economy.”

The tally of 3 million does not include so-called day trippers who disembark while on a cruise or who stop in Israel on their way to Jordan. The record for tourists including day trippers was actually in 2013, when 3.5 million tourists of all stripes visited Israel. It isn’t clear if 2017 will break that mark or not.

In 2013, there were 2.96 million overnight visitors, the previous record. Tourism numbers were down in 2014, the year of the last Gaza war, but the numbers have been increasing steadily in the subsequent three years.

[Photo: IsraeliPM / YouTube]