Op-ed: Israel has a tourist offering unlike any other country: Archaeological sites, great beaches, thumping nightlife, fantastic food and compelling landscapes. But great content means nothing without the proper packaging.
“This place is amazing!” Jerome said over a potent Israeli coffee. “You should have told me sooner.”
My French friend had flown from Paris to Tel Aviv for the Madonna concert a few years back – and he was already eager to plan his next trip.
“You’re right,” I replied, with the foamy blue of the Mediterranean behind his shoulders to validate it. “But just remember, this isn’t a normal place.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“You’ve been here a week,” I said. “Stick around a bit.”
After his virgin visit, there followed many quiet days coupled with (as usual) too many acts of terror and of course two messy Gaza “operations,” the last one throwing a monkey wrench into any plans to sell Israel to the world as a must-do destination.
Only Hamas takes delight in headlines like “Israel’s hotels suffer 25% decrease in tourist business.” This unhappy statistic flashes like a big neon failure sign even as Greece, where the average ruin is sturdier than its shambolic economy, is already making a fast recovery with many hotels booked up through September.
So why can’t Israel get it together? The country has a tourist offering unlike any other: Archaeological sites, great beaches, thumping nightlife, fantastic food, compelling landscapes. For God’s sake, it even has Jesus Christ!
As with anything these days, however, great content means nothing without the proper packaging. It’s easy enough to blame the ongoing rut on the rough-and-tumble neck of the woods Israel finds itself in, but that’s only part of the picture.
Geopolitics may leave Israel in an unenviable position (literally), and value for money here, which maybe was never great, is poor with no tangible sign of improvement. But the fact that a vacation in freewheeling Tel Aviv can send you home with empty pockets should not in itself be a deterrent to prospective travelers.
Back in September I asked if Operation Protective Edge ruined tourism in Israel. The short answer is: No, it did not, but did 51 days of hostilities put a dent in Israel’s desirability? To its enemies’ glee, of course it did.
But what did Israeli officialdom do in terms of repair work? Judging by the numbers of empty hotel rooms in Tel Aviv this summer, not a whole lot – which should hardly come as a surprise. A government in any country has enough to do governing. When government pokes its nose in matters of a more commercial nature, the mistakes just multiply.
I could see some of the present ones a long way off, since long before the days rocket attacks or the threat of them could shutter Ben-Gurion Airport. In 2011, I began writing a guide to Israel for About.com, a company whose executives at the time took some convincing (wasn’t the region too volatile to position as truly tourist-friendly? etc.) before they gave the project the go-ahead.
Once I arrived in Israel to do the work, I remember gawking at hotel prices, sustaining sticker shock at the price of gas and adjusting to other budgetary realities of the Middle East, and all this prompted me to make a trip to the Ministry of Tourism in Jerusalem. I met with many different people who gave me many different reasons why the ministry could offer no logistical support to help with the guide project. That was fine, but there was no way my travel writer’s stipend could sustain the research over time.
In the meantime, the same ministry subsidized several trips by foreign journalists of not infrequently questionable credibility, orchestrated by overseas public relations agencies, which are in turn subsidized by the Israeli taxpayer. Why is this relevant? Because those trips and those agencies are a waste of both time and money. If you need the proof, all you have to do is look once again at the recent statistics. Talk to ministry officials and you’ll get some half-baked attempts at spin: Summer isn’t the high season for Israel anyway, Russians feeling the financial pinch and so on.
I say, so what? If summer isn’t the traditional high season for Israel, then maybe it should be – but it isn’t going to happen by force of luck or stale bureaucratic thinking.
Case in point, several months ago, when former Tourism Minister Uzi Landau spoke at the French Ambassador’s residence in Jaffa before a crowd of foreign imams who were on a visit to Israel. I couldn’t help thinking, what does this have to do with tourism? Creating good-will is all well and good, but it doesn’t necessarily bring in tourism dollars. It’s a baby-step, but the global travel market is a bit beyond infancy. It’s ferociously competitive. Landau’s time would have been better spent addressing a roomful of antsy young Germans or cosmopolitan Turks, or a rec-room full of old Floridians, than rattling off well-meaning platitudes in Jaffa.
But that’s not his fault – it’s Jerusalem’s. The entire Ministry of Tourism should really either be abolished or completely repurposed as a public-private enterprise.
In the first instance, Israel would basically adopt the American model. The United States has no tourism department and no need for one; it is up to states and individual municipalities to decide how to allocate resources for tourism promotion. In Israel, cities and regions could look to Tel Aviv as model of how to promote a destination’s brand image overseas.
And that brings me back to Greece: Despite the persistent economic crisis there, tourism numbers are robust. One of the reasons is because the Greek tourism product, like the Israeli one, is diverse and unique and will entice travelers no matter the fluctuations in perception of security and stability. But another reason is the government knows not to mess with the Hellenic mercantile instinct.
When you see stories on CNN or CNBC about the impact of the crisis on tourism in Greece, only rarely does someone in government speak. It’s more often someone from SETE, the Greek Tourism Federation, a non-governmental association and a very savvy one. A related group, MarketingGreece, is a partnership between private sector entities to promote Greek tourism, and behind the scenes it’s been hard at work pumping out the message that whether or not ATMs are on life support there’s never been a better time to visit the place.
Is it too much to expect that kind of counter-intuitive strategy from a governmental body pinned down by its own inertia? Of course it is! At any given time Israel faces worse foes than fat-cat creditors in Brussels and Berlin, but one of the most intractable of enemies is the fear that still keeps tourists and their wallets away. A press junket here and clever advertising campaign there just don’t cut it anymore, and perhaps never did. It takes a lot more to generate buzz and keep airplanes packed.
There’s no slam-dunk fix and the answer certainly isn’t a taxpayer-funded bailout of the Israeli tourism industry, but there are opportunities. Take Mariah Carey, who is slated to perform in Tel Aviv next month. I have no doubt the event will be well-covered in the local press, and that between costume changes, Ms. Carey might even get to meet a dignitary or two.
But has anyone from the Ministry of Tourism reached out to African-American magazines or Rolling Stone any of the influential American music media? Pop culture Websites? Or invited the relevant plugged-in bloggers and budding Instagram stars over to Tel Aviv for a few days to cover the high notes and attendant hoopla? If so, wonderful, but if not, why not? As I understand it and as industry colleagues tell me, hotel space is not a problem.
As reported by Ynetnews