Israel tourism on the rise

Fresh from the announcement of the 2005 Award winners last week, Israel Tourism’s Dr David Beirman advises that travel numbers are looking very promising for 2006 and beyond.

“As we head up towards the end of year it is worth noting some of the main developments in the growth of tourism of tourism to Israel.I have kept you frequently updated on our progress and our current year to date growth rate of 33% in Australia and 8% in New Zealand should get us very close to 20,000 Australians and 2,700 Kiwis visiting Israel this year.” he said.

He also announced that seven Australian wholesalers have chosen to introduce Israel for the first time in their product range or have re-instated Israel this year. Their actions are seen as a vote of confidence in Israel and have the benefit of increasing choice for Australian travellers.

They are:

Greece and Mediterranean Holidays First time

Peregrine Adventures re-instated

Touchdown Tours re-instated

Mediterranean Holidays First Time

Global Getaway First Time

Made Easy Tours re-instated

Mediterranean Holidays and Tours First Time

There has been a significant resurgence in Christian pilgrimage tourism from all Christian denominations and the holiday market to Israel which was dormant between 2001-2003 has really begun to recharge. The false perception of Israel as a “hot spot” or “unsafe” tourism destination has looked increasingly ridiculous this year in the face of terrorist attacks aimed at tourists targeting many of the most popular tourism destinations in the world. Israel, to date, has been virtually free of terrorism targeted at tourists since 1972.

The Israel Ministry of Tourism is working hard to achieve an “Open Skies Policy” for Israel. What this means in plain language is the removal of restrictions on the number of carriers which are permitted to operate flights into Israel from any given source country.

The liberalisation which has occurred so far has led to a growth in the number of airlines servicing Israel from Europe and North America and it will only be a matter of time before more airlines from our part of the world will extend services into Israel. These issues will feature at a major Globes Business conference being held in Israel Dec 3-5.

So far El Al’s flights from Hong Kong, Bangkok and Beijing to Tel Aviv are the only non-stop flights between the Asia-Pacific and Israel but as the market grows, the likliehood of El Al extending services and other airlines introducing them increases. Clearly, this will not happen overnight but as bilateral tourism between Israel and East Asia/ Oceania continues to grow at the current rates such developments are inevitable.

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