News Brief

Israeli officials are concerned that the upsurge in terrorist incidents last year in Europe and the Middle East is causing a downturn in Israel’s tourism industry as more and more Americans are reluctant to travel abroad.

This concern was expressed by Avraham Sharir, Israel’s Minister of Tourism, and Michael Gidron, the director of information services for the Ministry of Tourism. In discussions here with American Jewish journalists the two officials stated that the increase in terrorist activity and the media focus on this has resulted in a serious decline of the number of Americans visiting Israel.

“There is an overall tendency of Americans to slow down their visits to European countries and elsewhere” as a result of terrorist activity, Gidron said. “Israel has been scarred for years with the seal that it wasn’t safe” to visit, he added. But a decline in tourism has now become an international problem. “It’s no longer a question of fear of travel to Israel per se,” Gidron observed.

But Sharir expressed belief that it is too early in the year to calculate the long-term effect of terrorism regarding travel to Israel. “There is a downfall yes,” in tourism to Israel at this time, Sharir said. But “when there was an earthquake in Mexico people stayed away. It’s a natural reaction of people.”

CONCERN ABOUT 1986 PROSPECTS

Israel is worried about the prospects for 1986, according to Gidron, because of a decline in the bookings for hotels, airlines, sales of tour packages and in other tourism-related fields. Tourism is Israel’s number one income producer, employing some 20,000 people. This amounts to about five percent of all commercial sector employes. Their jobs, as well as income from tourist spending, are threatened.

Gidron said that while there was a slight increase in overall tourism to Israel this January over January 1985, with 71,000 people as compared to 70,000, worldwide tourism to Israel for last month decreased by 14 percent from February 1985.

There was a total of 1.250 million worldwide visitors to Israel in 1984, spending more than $1.2 billion. In 1985 the total number of tourists reached 1.436 million, with revenues exceeding $1.4 billion. Nearly 428,000 of the tourists in 1985 came from the United States, 40 percent of whom were repeat visitors, according to a recent study by Israel’s Ministry of Tourism.

Gidron pointed out that during the first seven months of 1985, the ratios of tourism to each month in 1984 rose by 20-30 percent. But for August through December 1985, when terrorist attacks became the focus of media attention, the traffic of tourists increased by only 5-8 percent, for a yearly average of 14 percent. Most of that annual figure represented the 19-25 percent increase of tourists from Europe in contrast with a 6 percent rise from the U.S.

EFFORT TO CURB TOURISM DECLINE

In an effort to curb the drop in tourism, Gidron told the American Jewish journalists that Israel’s Cabinet recently approved an additional $2.150 million budget, effective April I, for promoting and publicizing the tourism industry. This money, in addition to the Cabinet-approved 1986 direct promotion budget of $4 million, will be targeted toward the media in the form of newspaper articles, magazine features, and television programs.

The current national print and advertisement campaign, “Come to Israel, Come Stay With Friends,” emphasizes Israel’s hospitality and cultural attractions. Ads in travel trade publications emphasize Israel’s airport security, which requires security checks for each piece of luggage. These ads also emphasize that the safety of Americans in Israel has not been threatened by recent worldwide terrorist activities.

El Al, Israel’s national airline, is promoting its year-round, non-stop service from New York to Israel. Sharir said that EI AI is trying to convince other airlines to follow suit. This spring, TWA will resume non-stop services from New York to Israel while most international airlines offer one-stop flights.

While apprehension among American travelers-revolves around safety, Gidron said that Israel’s public tourist campaigns will not directly address the safety issue. Instead, he said that the message that “Israel is safe” will be illustrated through an emphasis on the normal day-to-day life Israelis lead, and by highlighting Israel’s cities, sports, art, culture, theater and education.

The Ministry of Tourism brought 500 travel agents from the U.S. to Israel in December, January and February to see the country for themselves and according to Gidron, to be “on-the-spot eye-witnesses” that Israel is safe to visit. They admitted that in Israel they felt safe and relaxed, Gidron said, and the purpose was for them to return home and share those feelings with potential visitors. Gidron said the Tourism Ministry plans to invite more media personnel for the same reason.

EMPHASIS IS ON AROUSING AMERICAN JEWS

Although Israel’s appeal for tourists is not restricted to diaspora Jews, there is an emphasis on arousing American Jews, less than 20 percent of whom have ever visited Israel. “It’s a distressing fact that so many of our people have not visited the State of Israel,” Sharir said. “It baffles me.”

Continuing, he said: “I don’t believe a person can be a complete Jew without seeing Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the oldest city in the world and the youngest one. . . . It’s renewing itself every day, constantly changing. You can rediscover it again and again, its history emerging and re-emerging before your eyes.”

Gidron explained that “For the last five or six years we’ve noticed a continuous year-by-year partial decline and partial standstill in Jewish traffic from North America, the largest Jewish community, in contrast to a growing non-Jewish traffic to Israel.”

A concentration on attracting American Jews is beginning to emerge in Israel. The Tourism Ministry recently invited 210 Conservative, Reform, Orthodox and Reconstructionist rabbis from the U.S. and Canada to a three-day conference dealing with ways to promote travel to Israel. At the conference, which was organized by the Israel Bond Organization in cooperation with the Synagogue Council of America and El Al, the rabbis planned to organize a total of 390 tour groups this year.

Sharir noted that a special task force primarily for Jewish tourism has been established and is working with several organizations, including Hadassah, the Jewish National Fund, Israel Bond Organization, and the United Jewish Appeal. Its focus will be “to explain why it is important for a Jewish family to send their children to Israel — at least once, “Sharir said.

Israel, he added, is the land where the Bible comes to life and makes Jews feel proud “feasting their eyes on what our ancestors accomplished” and what is still being accomplished and the potential for ongoing and future accomplishments in every field of endeavor.

Sharir conceded that “I don’t have any remedy for fear…. But look at the rewards one gets” by visiting the State of Israel. “I’ve seen people kissing the earth on their arrival,” he said. “Show me another country that can fill one with such emotion.”