Of very few people can it be said that they truly put their stamp on a place, but the businessman and entrepreneur, David Lewis, who died this week in London, did so.

The King Solomon Hotel in Eilat, which opened in 1984, was the first of a string of Isrotel hotels to which thousands of British holidaymakers, by no means all Jewish, have flocked over the years. Mr Lewis was a hotelier with a difference, aiming not just to provide decent accommodation but to offer a holiday experience which would attract repeat visitors year after year. Eilat, together with the north's Carmel Spa and his newest hotel in the Negev, the Beresheet, are fitting memorials to a man of real vision.