Israeli tourism in the aftermath of October 7

[Music] ba was that kind of special character that was just like a sunshine she just shines on everyone we've already lost Christmas and H we are not giving up on Passover in Easter Israel is so special that people will come back here it's a matter of time and it's a short time you're listening to a special edition of the Jerusalem Post podcast travel [Music] ition hi David hey Mark um yeah yeah we thought long and hard about whether we should carry on podcasting at the moment we're recording this on November the 6th exactly 30 days after the events of October the 7th where nearly 1,500 Israelis were brutally murdered in an evasion from Gaza we decided to record tonight as our way of of marking what in Hebrew we call the schim the 30 days of mour what we wanted to do was to look at the tourism the travel industry from an Israeli perspective to see what state we're in today in the wake of what's happened and particular L because all of this tragedy has occurred what about a year after the sort of official end of the covid pandemic we really thought long and hard about whether now is the time to talk about tourism Israelis are not thinking about holidays Israelis are not looking where to go at the moment and Jews around the world are united with Israel and worried about their own safety so we had to try and find a way of telling a tourism story but giving it the gravitas it needs so amongst the issues that we will probably be discussing over the next half an hour 45 minutes will include the rescue if you will of Israelis who were living overseas at the time that the violence began the exit of many foreigners and indeed Israelis from Israel after October the 7th and we're going to tell a particularly poignant story of somebody who lost their life in the October the 7th attacks somebody related to one of our previous podcasts we'll get to that later in a second we'll introduce you to our first [Music] guest so where do we begin David I guess the best place to begin is with the official picture later on in the podcast we'll hear from the tourism industry but first let's get a view from the ministry that deals with tourism we spoke with Ambassador pel Levy who is an advisor to the tourism Ministry and he starts by telling us what the tourism Ministry does in times of [Music] peace Israeli tourism uh industry as we saw in the last few years we witnesses an impressive level of growth over the recent years and 2019 was a record-breaking year bringing more than 4 million tourists to Israel and the industry accounts for almost 3% of the Israeli economy around 200,000 people around Israel are feeding out of the tourism industry which injects some around 5 billion US dollars to the Israeli economy the ministry of tourism in Israel is quite unique because it's not only in charge of promoting the tourism to Israel but is also in charge of the infrastructure building of the industry meaning uh hotels tourist destination Etc so it's quite a vast responsibility that the ministry has and 2023 was supposed to be a new record year surpassing 2019 the preco uh year with a lot of new countries that are coming in with the tourists people from different countries that we were not used to see tourists from so it was supposed to be a really groundbreaking Year from a tourism point of view the war couldn't have happened at a worse time how was the industry on October the 6th the DAT before The Invasion 2023 was really the year that the industry finally recovered from the covid don't don't forget that the tourism industry was very badly hit during the covid years and it took a longer time to recover because you know we were always planning a years at best so we were at the top of of the game with people from different countries coming over with a lot of uh investment in infrastructure changing a lot of rules how to build hotels quicker how to cut the red tape a little bit you must have seen that Israel was very present in the international market not only the typical old-fashioned tourism coming here which is a religious oriented tourism still 60% of the tourists who come here will come as a pelage either Muslim Christian or or Jewish but the 40% the other ones that are really coming for Israel not only about for the history or for religion but as a city break as a new destination that offers variety of destinations wine desert sea Israel is understood that it's a real industry and it really brings Israel into a wider Club of countries that are leading in tourism October the 7th happens tourism finishes in Israel what does the tourism Ministry do the first industry to be hit was the tourism October 7th we had 130,000 tourists that Day in Israel nowaday we have 18,000 the ministry of Tourism traditionally Seas to exist you know it's it's it's only you know damage control Etc but the minister decided that since we are handling the hotel industry he will jump in and fill a vacuum to assist the 250,000 almost 250,000 Israelis that were evacuated in the first week we have Nema the National Emergency agency and when they deal with evacuating people they evacuate them to schools or mnim and then try to find them a place so we said we cannot have those pictures of people that suffered in the OR b or c money and then they have to go to a school and to sleep on the floor it's unacceptable we just enter into the vacuum um Minister cat he was the minister of labor labor and Welfare so he has this point of view and we can utilize the ministry that's out of job to help in those fields of getting the people to are respectable lodgings at some point you we are going to have to start reintroducing the idea of Tourism let's go back from minute to covid when there was no international travel you pivoted and said to the Israelis let's do blue and white let's stay at home let's go to the hotels let's go to the timers the log cabins is that something that you are envisioning being the initial entree back into the world of travel and tourism for Israel yes and no that's a good Israeli answer it's a completely different situation now because it's not Co this days the rest of the uh Market the rest of Israel is working banks are open stores are opening everything is working kind of working the only industry that really fell down is tourism the rest of the world continues as usual it's not that the co that we were part of the world that all companies ceased to fly and the hotels were empty this is not the case our neighbors especially Jordan and Egypt are affected as well but the rest of the world goes on so therefore there are two things first of all in order to save a little bit the hotel industry those evacuees are in the hotels and the hotel service saving money so they don't need to close we have a few thousands of people still working now when we are talking about coming back there are three stages of the day after because now there are 18 ,000 tourists here okay half of them are Jewish that came to visit their families but we are starting to see already uh delegations of what we call sympathy delegations especially from Jewish communities from evangelists from churches we going to see those delegations coming back secondly will be people that will choose Israel as a destination as a way of supporting Israel let's say a Jewish Family from Liverpool or Manchester instead of going to Palma okay this year we're going to go to Israel the rest of the tourist it will take time between six months to to a year so yes we want a lot of what we call local tourism in order to recover but don't forget israelies in the last two three years were very upset with hotels industry here because of the prices most Israel felt that we are paying too much for a product so I'm not sure so sure that it's going to happen again on the other hand we saw that the hotel system really put themselves under Al as we say in Hebrew and they are sacrificing a lot under the stretcher under the stretcher yeah this time of year November there's the World Travel Market in London and I know in the past Israel has been one of the big sponsors it sponsors a lot of events at that travel Market at the moment Israel is out there showing the world the atrocities of October the 7th how do you pivot from there and start telling the world Israel is a safe place to come it was very hard to decide whether we are in the fair of the wtm the world trade market in the end we were not there because uh several decisions how can you sell Israel now it's it's a little bit ridiculous we thought about maybe putting the pictures of the hostages but we felt it's not there in the end of the day the decision was made by us because the security wise the local authorities didn't guarantees us the safety of the Pavilion and the safety of the people visiting there and therefore we decided not to be there I think that uh it was a wise decision a lot of people from the industry traveled to do the meetings but we didn't have the cover of the Pavilion there were supposed to be two Pavilions one of Tel Aviv and one of the ministry but for example in December we are going to be present in another big fair in Los Angeles in California what we are trying to do and basically the industry is doing is keeping the contacts expanding people that it's a temporary thing this operation or this war is completely different from what we knew before but in the last 20 years we had cycles of violence uh with Gaza that influence tourism shortterm but we know how to do it we have a recovery plan or the day after plan which is very detailed we do continue to invest in Market marketing Etc because we cannot disappear we are active in very professional meetings of the United Nation World tourism organization Israel have a lot to sell in terms of uh travel Tech and we continue doing that in this trouble times Ambassador Levy do you have a final optimistic note about tourism in Israel Israel is here to stay and as a destination is so special that people will come back here it's a matter of time it's a short time we receive a lot of empathy and sympathy from our partners in the tourism World they understand us we even have joint webinars with Ukraine aan and and Cyprus that are leaving something similar to what we are doing what we are asking the tourists is don't cancel just postpone it and I think that most people will hear our call and will support us if anybody has any questions about coming to Israel about when is a good time to book and they want to get an official governmental response to their concerns and and hopefully they're positive questions is there a way they can reach out to you yes first of all we have the ministry of Tourism offices both in the US and UK that you can contact and also you can reach us by WhatsApp to 972 55972 6931 again 972 5597 72 6931 Ambassador pel Levy thank you very much for your time my pleasure thank you very much for taking your time to deal with the travel industry in [Music] Israel you're listening to the Jerusalem Post podcast travel Edition Mark about a month ago five weeks ago you and I had all sorts of plans to bring content to the podcast we were going to go to Brazil obviously that didn't happen and the evening before that we were going to go to the official opening of a Hotel in Tel Aviv for those of you that listened about 2 three months ago we had a podcast where we visited two new hotels two M Gallery hotels one in Jerusalem and one in Tel Aviv called the elenin we met a very wonderful man called Morgan who hosted us for the evening Morgan welcome back would you like to reintroduce yourself and tell people who you are and a little bit about the hotel thank you for having me once again um my name is Morgan molone I am the general manager of the honin hotel here in Tel Aviv in nedc I am 34 years old as you can hear also with my wonderful accent I'm from France I arrived in Israel 5 years ago and joined this wonderful project about 2 years and a half ago we reopened our doors last February we're talking about the very first hotel of Tel Aviv that opened its doors in 1913 and I'm a really really happy and delighted to be its general manager about a month ago we were going to come to the grand opening of the hotel the hotel had had a soft opening we'd been there we spent the evening we sat in the wonderful Epoch restaurant with you we were looking forward to this party a party that we would probably have to sleep off on the plane to Brazil but it was going to be a fantastic evening obviously the events of October the 7th changed that but for your team October the 7th was particularly close to home can you tell us why unfortunately in these awful events one of our employees got murdered her name was BTO she was at the party in the South and together with 260 other Souls got murdered by the Hamas terrorists it's indeed a situation that we are dealing with since day one here with the team it's been affecting us ever since until today we pay tribute to ba in many ways is that I will be able to tell you about it's just you know as a general manager it's not something that you expect to leave one day you feel responsible for each and every one of your employees and one day you learn on a phone call that one of them was murdered by terrorists I was not raised in this country I arrived like I told you five years ago and it's very tough but the team as well uh we are trying to hold on we have a psychologists who come to visit us once a week so that the team and and everyone can talk about it we were a lot also with bar families wonderful people from kibuts and she we of course were at the funerals we went to the Shiva right now we are taking some initiative to pay tribute to her and to to the person she was the wonderful person she was let's talk about bar she was Central to what you were doing at the Hotel you just opened you're recruiting people that was part and parcel of what she was brought in to do was to create this multinational staff that you had brought together tell us a little bit about the time that you spent with her her character ba was 25 years old she was HR assistant Human Resources assistant and she joined the team on the December 1st 2022 so she was really part of the the beginning and the the opening of the hotel and among the challenges she had to face was to recruit a team of about a hundred people which is a lot especially when we know how tough it is to recruit talents in Hospitality business but she did that she was never afraid she tackled every challenges and you know ba was was that kind of special character that was just like a sunshine whatever room she was entering in she she just shines on everyone she was like a medicine for bad days some sort of pill that you would always like to have with you and to feel better she was that b would really need that medicine right now the most we can do right now as a team and as a hotel as a restaurant and as a spa is to try to be the person she was beyond what you just said now have you got events planned or is there going to be some sort of Memorial we are going to do a few things we're going to do we are going to have some sort of a memory book with all the pictures that we had together here at the hotel we will have all our team members add a little memory note and signed it the point is for us then to give that back to the family to let them know because they know bar personally but I also want to know how great their daughter their sister nie was as a professional second one that we are actually going to hold on Tuesday bar was really special she had some sort of a ritual before going to the gym of always adding a little bit of pleasure and so she always used to eat ice cream before going to the gym on Tuesday we we're going to have a gym class and before the gym class we're going to have an nice cream bar for all our team members to pay tribute to her and and to talk a little bit about her the third initiative that we're going to have I am to fly to Dubai in a few days together with all the general manager of aore luxury hotels around the world and we are going to pay tribute to her as well during a ceremony for the the whole world to see and to remember her as a wonderful part of our hotel and of our company as well the war has obviously devastated tourists coming in there are very few flights into Israel how has the war affected the hotel but just like you said Mark we have no tourists anymore everyone has left and and I remember that when we were looking at the beginning of of the month of October until the the Eve of the attacks we were to have the best month of the year really and in about 72 hours all the tourists that we had in the house left right after during the first let's say the second week of October all our reservation International reservation and even local reservation got cancelled there was a a real question that we asked ourself was should we stay open or should we closed many of our competitors have closed their doors we wanted to hold on obviously with not all our facilities where to close our spa and to close our restaurant and and only offer our guests bed and breakfast with an option for all the dining but I wanted to save as possible the Strategic elements in the workforce uh we unfortunately had to send 60 people home out of 80 but we managed to keep about 20 team members with us we're trying to help like we can we have for example the do Sal which is the the speaker of the Israel army at least the the French one that is doing all the explanation for the the French journalists that is doing his duplex always here at the hotel we are welcome coming the bat cheva dance company that are now trying to get back to work but unfortunately as most of them are young people and living with roommates or they they don't have a shelter at home so the hotel owner Dominic romano and and Adriana Vice they asked us to welcome them on us and that's what we did and they're with us already two weeks they can enjoy a safe and environment and of course we are also welcoming some displaced families from the northern front and the southern front where do we go from here it's difficult to see past the end of each week at the moment with with the war progressing with not knowing exactly what next week brings where do you see a way out where do you see us in six months time the hotel in six months time I can talk for the the three of us and because the three of us come from abroad here there is a a huge lesson for us from the Israeli people we should learn and I am learning it right now the hard way it's h about resilience no matter what's happening in the country they keep moving forward on the short term this is what we have to do yes it's tough to look more than a week two week one month and to know what's going to happen but even if it's day by day then every day is a victory and we need to keep moving forward just like the Israelis do about the hotel and about the company I am confident that by the end of this war the Middle East if not the world is going to be different and is going to look at us and understand that we vot for justice and I'm sure that it will attract even more Travelers because everything all the efforts that are being made right now in explaining why we are fighting and who we are fighting even though we see crazy demonstration around the globe I know that they will pay those efforts will pay and we will be Victorious and also as a company and as a country Morgan Melone as we say in English from your lips on Woods May that prayer be realized general manager of the elenin hotel in The Vedic in Tel Aviv thank you so so much for for sharing what's in your heart and what's in your mind thank you very much thank you for wrting me very very sad story David when you turn off the microphone and you see the person's shoulders sag like the weight of the world is on their shoulders and there's nothing that he can say there's nothing that you can do that's going to take that pain away for Morgan for his team and for all other Israelis and and Jewish people and supporters of Israel right now since we recorded the interview I have been to the hotel and I lit a candle at Bar's memorial let's look at another angle to this story which is the travel and tourism those people coming into Israel those people going out of Israel and how what happened on October the 7th affected that industry we are now going to talk to Mark Feldman who is the Jerusalem District director of the disen house travel company to find out what is happening in the travel and tourism industry in Israel let's go back to that black Saturday that's 7th October we started getting reports early in the morning that something was going on the fog was unbelievable this was the first time in over 30 years that my religious clients called me this has never happened never not for death of a parent not for a grandparent my religious clients called me they had flights for that Saturday night and they said Mark I'm sorry to disturb you shabbat please cancel we knew that Mo Shabbat would be a tsunami of phone calls everybody calling my staff literally worked 10 straight days 20 hours a day handling people that were stranded primarily abroad they wanted to get back to this country bringing over soldiers and once all the foreign Airlines stopped flying here dealing with hundreds and hundreds of tourists that had to get out that wanted to get it out we've never seen anything like it we were exhausted the only good thing about it is because we were working so hard we were not listening to the radio we weren't following social media we didn't have time to hear all the horrendous stories that took place this went on for 10 days non-stop 247 Word of Mouth people started asking for help I'm stuck here will you help me here what about this we' never seen anything like this and I've got 17 agents so it was really a massive production and they performed admirably I finally made them after 10 days stop to decompress because it was just getting to them it was not ending what's happened here is unlike covid this only happening in our country you know the United Airlines are still flying just not to Israel British Airways is still flying just not to Israel it's dealing in a different manner than we've ever had anybody who had a Leisure trip planned whether they had a son or a grandson or a daughter in the army or in the police canceled immediately everybody nobody said GE this is a time to go to you know Athens to do some sun baiting what didn't stop was there were a lot of business Travelers who did not have a personal connection who continue to fly clearly there are virtually no foreign tourists who are going to come in now but in Hebrew we have a word which is leit a which I guess the literal translation is to get a bit of a breather is anybody turning to you and say saying maybe not now but maybe in a couple of months time we actually do want to leave Israel we'll do it through L cuz that's the company that's flying and we'll go to one of the places that they are currently flying to to get a break or am I completely naive and that is not happening at all at all not happening in the least we've got groups going to Australia to India in next year and the people are afraid to commit to that not because of anti-Semitism because there's almost a guilt involved what will happen and you alluded to it when the reservist come back they will go abroad to decompress they need the decompression the average person living in this country does not need it but you raised a point that I have to talk about this is the first war we've had where we set a lot of people out of this country to get away not to decompress not not for a breather you have to understand people were scared people begged to get out of here and we understand whatever trauma they may have it is not our decision to judge them but we have had people in Tel Aviv in Rishon in Jerusalem we've had people in Mal adumim which for 31 days has not had a single siren who are positive that there's going to be an uprising in Jordan and they will all come over there so we've never had this before this fear that they don't know what's going on here will hisbah attack us and that we've never had so I can't say that they left for a breather they left really out of fear have you found many of the people that left out of fear have come back no no they're not leaving Israel they're not leaving in other words if you study the history after the Yumer war in 1973 there was a large immigration from this country people that just felt they couldn't take it anymore these people live here work here they're taking sabatical or some arranging it they're planning on coming back they just don't feel physically safe it runs the gamut from the north to the South to everywhere and it runs anglos Israelis the one commentator would be younger people singles people with kids they're just really scared and it's hard for us who are living here it's hard for us who have been through Wars and terrorist attacks and excursions and operations this affected people a lot more until October 7th two of the main exit or access points for Israelis were Istanbul and the United Arab Emirates they would getting dozens of flights a week in the case of turkey those flights have stopped there are still some flights going through the United Arab Emirates is any anybody flying that route right now Airlines don't fly to just be nice they fly because they can make money I know they're flying because when I'm sending tickets to Singapore or to Melbourne that's the only way out there's a lot of cargo being brought in goods and services it's something that we never imagined it was incredibly popular going to the UAE by itself as a destination but like turkey used to be as you alluded to it's become a Transit Point nobody's stopping in Dubai and saying let's go to the Burge Khalifa they're switching airports to go beyond to the east almost exclusively this is business people it's not people are saying gee you know there's a Warr let's go to Bangkok and you know check out puket and Kay these are business people or going for family reasons as I said this is not leisure travel before Mark asks the next question I should just point out to you the listener that we're recording this on November November the 6th so in terms of those companies that are currently flying this is the date at which we're making that point are there solidarity missions coming to Israel as well as business travel and how much of the Lost business does that cover we're down incoming travel 80% 80% the vast majority in the first few weeks were solidarity missions they came in congressmen federations we don't get the church groups at this stage but we get all the the Jewish groups come in two or three days staying actually in Jerusalem because they felt Tel was unsafe they come in they meet they make the rounds and they go back it's very good for the economy it's also good for us you're not getting business people flying in there what we are getting in though are Americans primarily who want to volunteer we brought in two farmers who want to come down and help pick the crops we got a lot of Americans who have said what can I do to come here the numbers are small but the fact that they're coming to a country that's at war is very very questionable it's it's a wonderful wonderful feeling for the Israelis we want to try to be somewhat optimistic at the end of our interviews in in this episode in the hope and of course it will happen one day that people will be returning to Israel how can they find out about your company if they want to book through you and my email is Mark MK Feldman FLD d m an strudel Zion tours Z IO n t rs. co.il you can reach me 246 you can ask questions if you've got tickets that you haven't been refunded if you need assistance with hotels volunteers we didn't talk about all of our tour guides are completely out of work we're already planning the day after we already are planning because we have a large internal Department here we want to start having buses going down to these communities not to see the hores but to help those businesses we want to go on the St Road and help them we think it's important I'm not saying we're not going to take our T to Mada for the few months afterwards they need to see how many people financially suffered I can't take them to hospitals but I can take them to the small businesses who been hurt and that's what we've already set up to do we're a resilient country you know your listeners should not assume that we're folding over we are a resilient country how quickly we will recover we've already lost Christmas and honor whatever groups that were coming on gone we are not giving up on Passover in Easter I can promise you that we are planning Passover an Easter to be filled to the brim to have stories of tourists talking about the taxi when it put on a meter we will go back we will not capitulate to Terror Mark Felman Jerusalem District director of disen house thank you very much so there you have it the thoughts of governmental represent Representatives the hotel industry and the travel agency world I guess in many ways all of them coming to similar conclusions right now I guess Market's very difficult not to come to those types of conclusions these are tough times as you said at the beginning of the podcast a lot of people thought we've seen the back of covid Revenge tourism it's good times ahead and we're at that point now where things are difficult for some of the hotels the government relocating families there is giving them hope and giving them income but it's much more than Finance it's about how the country is at the end how the people returning to the hotel industry from the war will be affected how easy it is to bring customers back to Israel afterwards those are the challenges we hope you found the words of our guests interesting we want to say thank you to ambassador pel to mark and to Morgan Mark let's try to finish on something a little bit hopeful optimistic maybe any thoughts from you I think my thought is I'm going to try and be optimistic and look forward to take myself a couple of months forward and hope that some form of normality returns we'll never forget the people that we lost we'll never forget what happened to this country and and the people affected will never forget their colleagues and their friends that they lost but we have to go on with life and we have to move forward and for me travel is a way of relaxing recovering improving your mental health I think it will be a very important part of life after the war and from the point of view of the industry here in Israel I think one thing I can add is that thankfully for most people in the world memories are short which as far as the tourism Industries recover is concerned is good news and yes it will take time it will take months but tourists will come back to Israel and hopefully there will be a brighter more peaceful environment in this part of the world and that as Morgan said maybe will only attract more and more visitors [Music]