Tourism Officials on Hotel Rooms: if You Build Them, They Will Come

If Israel doesn’t build more hotel rooms, and fast, it will not be able to accommodate the increase in tourism being generated by the peace process.

This was the warning conveyed by tourism experts at the Prime Minister’s Conference on Peace Tourism, held earlier this month.

Sponsored by the Ministry of Tourism and the Association for Promoting Tourism in Israel, the conference attracted 350 of the world’s top travel professionals from 35 countries.

According to ministry officials, strides in the peace process are boosting tourism to Israel as well as to its Arab neighbors.

In 1995, Israel welcomed a record-breaking 2.2 million tourists, up from 1.97 million in 1994.

In addition, international tourism rose last year by 10.3 percent in Jordan; 2.8 percent in Egypt; and a whopping 25.9 percent in Lebanon. The island of Cyprus, which is close to the Middle East, scored a healthy 12.4 percent increase in the number of tourists.

In a seminar on world travel trends, Antonio Enriquez Savignac, secretary general of the World Organization, told the audience, “The new climate of peace in the Middle East has already brought huge dividends in term of increasing tourism. This is an encouraging trend and one that we expect to continue.”

Already, thousands of Muslim pilgrims have arrived in Israel from such countries as Indonesia and Malaysia, and the number of Christian pilgrims is also on the rise.

Monsignor Liberio Andretta, who arranges tourism for the Vatican, noted that since the forging of diplomatic ties between Israel and the Vactican in December 1993, “Bishops, monsignors and group organizers have wanted to show a sort of goodwill by promoting tours to Israel.”

Acknowledging that many Catholics postponed a trip to Israel until the church gave its official stamp of approval, he added, “The mutual recognition between the two governments has made the psychological difficulties involved with promoting tourism to Israel disappear.”

In 1994, only 12,000 Catholics from the Vactican visited Israel. That number could reach 50,000 annually by the year 2000, Andreatta said.

Assuming that more and more travelers begin to perceive the Middle East as a safe vacation destination, both Israel and Jordan, which has also become an increasingly popular destination, will have to work double-time to accommodate the expected flood of visitors.

Already, both countries are scrambling to build thousands of hotel rooms and to improve and expand their existing infrastructures.

Eli Gonen, director general of the Israel Tourism Ministry, said the Jewish state can accommodate 2.6 million visitors.

By building new hotels in the main cities, as well as in the southern resort town of Eilat, it would be able to host 4.6 million people by the year 2006, he said.

In the future, Gonen said, the country plans to promote more off-season travel and off-the-beaten-track tours in order to distribute tourism revenues throughout the country.

Tourism is also expected to increase as a result of the 15-month Jerusalem 3000 festivities launched earlier this month.

In what promises another boost for tourism, Israel and the Palestinian Authority are planning a joint marketing campaign aimed at Christian pilgrims for the year 2000, when activity is expected to center around Jerusalem, Nazareth, Bethlehem and the Sea of Galilee.

Bethlehem Mayor Elias Freji, who also holds the Palestinian Authority’s tourism portfolio, told the gathering that Palestinians “have the most holy and historical places in our area, so we are in the process of formulating a five- year plan.”

“This will include 1,500 hotel rooms in Bethlehem, as well as another 1,000 rooms in other parts of the Palestinian territories,” he said.

Many of the Jordanian delegates who attended the conference noted that several major hotel chains are being built in the capital of Amman.

They also said other areas being developed in Jordan include the Dead Sea, Petra and the Gulf of Aqaba, which is located opposite the popular Israeli resort of Eilat.

During an awards ceremony honoring those most instrumental in promoting tourism to Israel, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin told the delegates, “I believe that the tourism industry, more than any other, bridges the gap in knowledge, in relations between people and individuals.”

But Geoffrey Lipman, president of the World Travel and Tourism Council, warned that tourism can only help build peace, not serve as its cornerstone.

“If you already have peace, tourism can contribute to it. If not, tourism can’t be the creator. It’s builder. If things stay on track, we can be the cement between the building blocks.”