Tourists from Singapore cover themse
with mud while bathing in the Dead Sea.
Marcy Oster
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jerusalem
I
sraeli tour guide Yossi Weiss was
leading two busloads of American
Christian pilgrims on a tour of
Jerusalem's Old City when he noted how
difficult it was to move around.
The Jewish Quarter was very crowded
and busy as the group visited the Temple
Mount, Robinson's Arch and other famous
sites, observed Weiss, who recently was
named chairman of the Israel Tour Guides
Association.
It was one sign of the record year Israeli
tourism is having.
Despite the hand wringing over Israel's
image overseas, the political direction of
the Jewish state and the persistence of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, visitors are con-
tinuing to flock to Israel — more than ever.
In the first half of 2010, some 1.6 million
tourists visited Israel, setting a new record,
according to the Israeli Tourism Ministry.
It constituted a 39 percent increase over
the same period of 2009, which included
the Gaza war, and a 10 percent increase
from the first half of 2008, Israel's previous
record year for tourism.
"Israel is a sought-after tourism product:'
said Oren Drori, senior deputy director gen-
eral at the Tourism Ministry, adding that
there is a wide gap between Israel's political
image and its actual image.
Despite the gains over last year, the
24
August 19 • 2010
number of visitors for 2010 is only slightly
ahead of where the numbers were 10
years ago, before the start of the second
Palestinian intifada, according to Ami Etgar,
director general of the Israel Incoming Tour
Operators Association.
Claiming that Israel can do better, Etgar
said, "This is a country that every person in
the world has a motivation to visit:'
Furthermore, the record numbers have
not translated into equal gains for Israeli
hotels because many of the tourists are day
trippers visiting from Egypt, Jordan, Cyprus
and Turkey, according to Eli Gonen, presi-
dent of the Israel Hotel Association.
The numbers also include the pas-
sengers on cruises that dock in Haifa and
Ashdod ports. For nearly a decade, cruise
ships did not stop in Israel due to ongoing
security issues, but they have returned
in recent months; and bookings have
increased for 2011.
"We are glad that people are coming to
visit the country,' Gonen said. "We hope
they will come again and stay longer"
Industry experts attribute Israel's tour-
ism boom to several factors:
• Israel has changed its aviation poli-
cies to allow more airlines to land in the
country, including charters and low-cost
European carriers.
• The evangelical market is growing.
Three-fourths of all visitors to Israel are
non-Jewish, and 35 percent of those visi-
tors define themselves as pilgrims, accord-
ing to Drori.
• More Russians are coming, in part
because Israel lifted the visa requirement
for travelers from Russia in 2008. With
the visa restriction now being lifted on
Ukraine, visitors from that country are
expected to grow, too.
• Tourism traffic from Latin America,
particularly Brazil, has risen dramatically. A
new El Al route established earlier this year
between Tel Aviv and Sao Paulo has helped
bring more visitors from South America.
"It's a boom:' Pilgrim Tours' operations
manager Eduardo Kitay said of the agency's
Spanish and Latin American pilgrimage
tours. Kitay says the agency is so busy, it
may have to turn away groups at the end of
the year and into early next year.
• New tourism markets, such as the Far
East and Eastern Europe, have begun to
send more travelers, while tourist from
Germany, England and France remain
steady. North America remains the No. 1
source of tourists to Israel.
Tourism Ministry officials attribute their
success in promoting Israel to implementa-
tion of the recommendations from a 2006
report by Ernst &Young on Israeli tour-
ism. The report found that Israel has the
potential to more than double the number
of annual visitors, to between 4 million and
5 million per year, and the way to reach that
point was to promote Israel's attractions
while minimizing any negative feelings
associated with its political developments.
The study propelled the Tourism
Ministry to develop "intensive, segmented
and focused" marketing and advertising
campaigns to improve Israel's image as a
tourism destination while targeting spe-
cific audiences, Drori said.
Over the past year, targeted advertis-
ing campaigns have run in the United
States, Russia, Germany, France, Britain,
Scandinavia and Brazil, ministry officials
said.
The manager of Tel Aviv-based Yarkon
Tours, Joseph Mizrachi, says the main
increase in bookings has come from
Christian visitors. Jerusalem is the
agency's main destination, in addition to
such Christian religious sites as the Sea of
Galilee (the Kinneret), the Jordan River,
the Mount of the Beatitudes and Mount
Tabor.
The surge in tourists also has benefited
the Palestinian economy by sending visi-
tors to the West Bank cities of Bethlehem
and Jericho. Though Israeli passport
holders are barred by law from entering
areas fully controlled by the Palestinian
Authority, known as Area A, the Tourism
Ministry recently allowed Israeli tour
guides into Bethlehem in preparation for
leading tours there, and Israel is consider-
ing easing restrictions on Israeli visits to
Palestinian areas.
Weiss, of the Tour Guide Association,
says August and September do not look
very promising now The American mar-
ket, which usually books well in advance,
appears to be waiting until the last minute,
he said, speculating that concerns about
the economy could be the reason.
"It puts some uncertainty into the equa-
tion," he said. ❑