Israeli Tourism’s Best October Ever: 330,000 Incoming Visitors

[Spectator]

Welcome to Holy Land!

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/134383

(IsraelNN.com) 330,000 tourists visited Israel this past month, an all-time high for October, and a 9% increase over October 2008, Israel's record tourism year.

Jerusalem in the Center
This was the first month this year that tourism registered an increase over last year – and Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov attributes it largely to positioning Israel as the Holy Land with Jerusalem at its center. He also credited the idea of marketing efforts according to target audiences.

The Tourism Ministry’s goal is to increase annual tourism to Israel by a million tourists within three years.

A total of 2.3 million tourists visited Israel during the first ten months of 2009 – equal to the total for the entire year of 2007. This number is 12% less than the same period last year, and 20% more than the same period in 2007.

Minister Misezhnikov, currently on the first official visit of an Israeli Tourism Minister to Brazil in the past decade, expressed satisfaction with the numbers, but said the ministry must and will continue to work harder to realize the desired tourism revolution.

The minister noted that the implementation of the program will include increased marketing overseas, adding hotel rooms of varying standards, and easing the bureaucratic process that currently prevents the realization of this potential. "Within just three years,” he said, “the tourism industry is capable of injecting more than a billion dollars into the state coffers and adding another 40,000 jobs in tourism, with the emphasis on the periphery.”

In Brazil together with President Shimon Peres, Misezhnikov has signed two agreements with the Brazilian government on behalf of Israel: one in tourism, and one concerning extradition.  The latter comes on the heels of wanted suspect Elior Chen’s escape to Brazil, which extradited him to Israel only after months of delay.

The tourism agreement is intended to increase traffic between the two countries, expand joint activities with wholesalers, and upgrade the connections with new and existing airline companies. The addition of El Al’s Tel Aviv-Sao Paolo route in May of this year contributed significantly to increased marketing capacity and tourism traffic from South America.