Home away from home - Keeping the tourism industry alive within Israel

With almost no one coming in from foreign climes the only way to try to keep the wolves at bay for local tourism operators is to look closer to home.

By BARRY DAVIS
TOURIST AGENTS from around the country get a taste of Jerusalem’s famed Mahaneh Yehuda market (photo credit: YALLA BASTA)
TOURIST AGENTS from around the country get a taste of Jerusalem’s famed Mahaneh Yehuda market
(photo credit: YALLA BASTA)
To paraphrase, and pretty liberally tailor, an oft-used saying, when the going gets tough the tough get looking for other avenues of making a living. Over the past four months one of the hardest hit sectors has been tourism. Last month, for example, just 5,800 tourists came here from abroad. It may come as a surprise to learn that anyone at all made the trip to Israel, which is considered across the globe as a high-risk, pandemic-ridden country. To put that in normalcy perspective, in June last year 365,000 landed here for a vacation in the Holy Land.
So, what to do? With almost no one coming in from foreign climes the only way to try to keep the wolves at bay for local tourism operators is to look closer to home. To that end, this Sunday there was a coronavirus crisis-spawned gathering of industry professionals, from across a broad spectrum of vacation and leisure time wares, at the Abraham Hostel near Davidka Square. The showcase took place under the auspices of the Business Center established by the Jerusalem Municipality, the Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Ministry and the Jerusalem Development Authority, in conjunction with MATI Jerusalem, a nonprofit that helps entrepreneurs and business owners start or expand businesses in and around Jerusalem
The showcase event, which went by the wordy but evocative name of Discovering, Eating and Falling in Love with the Jerusalemites’ Jerusalem, took in around 20 tourist agencies from across the country and a similar number of local tourism product providers. The latter covers all kinds of entertaining, informative and intriguing programs from music-based slots, to offerings that appeal more to the taste buds and belly, historical tours and guided routes of a more dynamic nature whereby participants make their way between junctures by Segway or bicycle.
And there are higher fitness level excursions, such as Yael Goodman’s RUN_JLM jog around the city. “Jerusalem is a like a blanket,” she says. “You lift up the covers and peep underneath, and then you get the real stories.”
Goodman had arrived at a professional impasse, but she did know she enjoyed running. So, why not combine pleasure, health and breadwinning? “I used to run all the time. I was 30 kilos heavier than I am now,” she says with a laugh. Considering her current aerodynamic figure that is hard to believe. She knew she wasn’t exactly reinventing the wheel but felt it was time to get visitors to Jerusalem to shake a leg as they speed, shanks’ pony, from one city landmark to another.
“There are running tours all over the world,” says Goodman. “I did my research. The first running tour was in Los Angeles, in 1995.” That is surprising. Los Angeles, the city where everyone seems to spend at least half their day stuck behind the steering wheel was home to the world’s first running tour! It was high time, Goodman thought, that Jerusalem joined the organized scenic jogging bandwagon. “It made sense. There were already lots of running tours all over Europe. Running, these days, it’s not just about that one crazy person running through Sacher Park wearing a grandma vest. Everyone’s running now, doing marathons and other stuff.”
YAEL GOODMAN’S RUN_JLM offers interesting information about the city’s landmarks and a chance to keep fit. (Credit: Yonit Schiller)
YAEL GOODMAN’S RUN_JLM offers interesting information about the city’s landmarks and a chance to keep fit. (Credit: Yonit Schiller)
The RUN_JLM catchphrase is “run through thousands of years in a single workout.” “It’s a win-win situation,” Goodman notes. “You get to see some amazing things in this amazing city, and also keep fit. What could be better?”
What indeed? But there were many other tourism professional and suppliers at the Abraham Hostel gathering, each with their own unique offering. Not least the host venue that now has three branches across the country – in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Nazareth. A fourth was due to open in Eilat but that has now been postponed to January, with the hope that the pandemic and its concomitant constraints will, by then, be a thing of the past. Uri Sharon was more than delighted to help breathe some new life into the city’s tourism scene, and help redress the severe lockdown income shortfall. “I am a Jerusalem tour guide and I love this city,” says the Abraham Hostel marketing director. “I lived in Berlin for three years but I came back. This is the most interesting city in the world.”
Things have been going great guns for the hostel chain for some years now. “We are a recognized brand internationally,” says Sharon. “We have people coming especially to us from abroad, particularly from Romania and Italy.” The lockdown stopped that inflow in mid-surge. “Over 85% of the people that stayed here, before the coronavirus, were from abroad. And we are also known for hosting all kinds of shows and other events.” I recall a delightful evening, not too many moons ago, when I enjoyed a tasty Indian meal on the roof.
Now everything has changed. “We have had to take on a shift in our activities, and to channel our products to the Israeli consumer,” Sharon notes. “In the past we only had guided tours in English, now we only have guided tours in Hebrew.” So, we are talking about an accommodation and tour package. “Abraham Hostel is located slap bang in the center of the city. You have Hanevi’im Street right here, with all its gems, and there is Ethiopia Street with the beautiful Ethiopian church. And there’s the shuk just around the corner. There’s a running tour which begins here too.” Having spent quite some time on and around Hanevi’im Street over the past four decades or so, even with the new tall construction, and some of the gorgeous old masonry ornaments that have been lost of the years, I can fully vouch for the value of taking a leisurely stroll around the area.
Apparently Israeli accommodation needs tend to differ from nonlocal requirements. “We have adapted rooms to suit families,” Sharon continues. “We now have a room category – Grand Family – with a double bed for parents and beds for up to four children. We also have group rooms. It’s a bit like a camping experience.”
As the indoor session wound down we were treated to a high speed pitching slot, with the likes of the Yalla Basta culinary tourism company, Go for the Local guided tour outfit, family-run, all-suite bed and breakfast restored Templer mansion Templer Inn near the First Station and musician Liat Raz Kedar who runs sing-alongs and singing circles, while Pnina Ein Mor talked to us briefly about the Ein Kerem Legend company, which offers cultural tours of all types around the country and, primarily, in Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, outside, we were treated to a concise but fascinating guided tour of the hostel environs, a little way down Hanevi’im Street. Ein Mor regaled us with tales about the formerly sumptuous Kamenitz Hotel, which opened right next to the hostel back in 1878. We were told it was the first kosher hotel in Jerusalem and, in fact, began life in the Old City as far back as 1842. Ein Mor informed us that national poet Haim Nahman Bialik benefited from five-star treatment there, as did Theodor Herzl in 1898. The latter visit, mind you, was abruptly curtailed as Herzl did not particularly enjoy the company, German-speaking soldiers who were also among the hotel guests.
That was highly illuminating, and fun, but of course the bottom line is will the showcase help to boost the ailing, pandemic-strapped local tourism industry? Itzik Cohen, chairman of the Israel Association of Travel Agencies and Consultants, certainly thinks so. “We believe in taking action and the Israeli spirit, in the importance of going on trips in Israel. We believe that, with the right joint work with the Tourism Ministry, we will be able to devise interesting and inexpensive packages for the public, through the tourist agents that serve as the community and individual engine for coming out of the crisis.”
Zuzu Tourism co-owner Yuval Klein was similarly upbeat. “The Israeli tourism community is a tight-knit professional bunch,” he states. He notes that, prior to the pandemic, the community catered for 4 million incoming tourists and 1 million Israelis annually. It is now all hands on deck. “We are all working together, cooperatively and with mutual support, in order to provide Israeli tourists with the best experience of their life, and to sustain our infrastructures for the day after.”
Here’s hoping that day arrives sooner rather than later.