According to a recently-published report by Dun & Bradstreet Israel, the ancient Roman ruins on Mount Masada climbed above Jerusalem’s Biblical Zoo to become Israel’s most visited pay-to-enter tourist site in 2010 with 762,992 visitors. Masada’s revenue rose 26% to NIS 34 million in 2010 from NIS 25.7 million in 2009. 718,902 people visited the Biblical Zoo.

Masada, with the excavated remains of a fortress built by King Herod, is situated atop an isolated rock cliff at the western end of the Judean Desert, overlooking the Dead Sea. On the east the rock falls in a sheer drop of about 450 meters to the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth, is one of the 28 finalists in the New 7 Wonders of Nature online competition (www.votedeadsea.com). In June 2011, Masada will serve as the backdrop to five desert performances of  Verdi’s Aida by the Israel Opera, as well as Verdi's Requiem performed by the orchestra of the Arena di Verona, as part of the Masada, Dead Sea and Jerusalem Opera Festival.

The third most visited pay-to-enter tourist site was the Caesarea Antiquities National Park, with 698,808 visitors. The Hermon National Park (Banias), one of the sources of the Jordan River , rose from ninth place in 2009 to fourth place in 2010 with 663,000 visitors.

Visitors to the Ramat Gan Safari Park fell sharply, pushing it down from the second most-visited site to the fifth. The Ein Gedi Nature Reserve was in sixth place, with 468,562 visitors in 2010, 12% more than in 2009. It was followed by the Hamat Gader hot springs in the Yarmouk River valley, the Underwater Observatory in Eilat, the Qumran Caves by the Dead Sea, and the Yamit 2000 Water Park in Holon.

Dun & Bradstreet Israel says that the aggregate revenue of Israel’s top ten pay-to-enter tourist sites rose 13% to NIS 143 million in 2010, which was a record-breaking year for incoming tourism with 3.45 million visitors.

The most visited free-to-enter sites in Israel in 2010 include the Western Wall (77%), the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem (73%), the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (61%) and the Via Dolorosa (60%) and the Mount of Olives (55%).  Jerusalem is the city most visited by incoming tourists in Israel, (76% of all tourists). Tel Aviv-Jaffa holds second place with 54% of all tourists having visited and in third place, the Dead Sea area with 49%. Tiberias holds fourth place with 42% of all tourists followed by Nazareth with 39%.