RP eyes Israeli travel market

CEBU, Philippines – The Philippine tourism sector is now looking at Israel as the next emerging tourism market for the country and hopes to achieve 40 percent arrival growth this year.

According to Department of Tourism (DOT) undersecretary for planning and promotions Eduardo Jarque Jr. the prospective arrival growth of Israel nationals to the Philippines this year, will be bolstered by the recent visit of the renowned TV reality program “Survivor-Israel” which featured some destinations in the Philippines.

Jarque said for a long time the Philippines, is not considered even as an alternative tourism or vacation destinations for Israelis, as most of them prefer to spend their vacations in Thailand and Indonesia.

“They [Israelis] are not even in our [arrival] statistics,” Jarque said adding that after Philippines will be featured in the “Survivor-Israel” television show, Israelis will now discover the unique beauty of the Philippines especially for adventure tourism aspect.

He said the reality TV show picked the Philippines as the “featured” country for its Asian episode, and this will largely benefit the promotion of the country to the growing 7.28 million population in Israel.

Israelis as travelers are high-spenders Jarque said, aside from that, these kinds of vacationers are also long-staying, normally stays at least a week.

Initially, DOT led by Jarque initiated a travel operators’ linking program in both countries to push awareness on the Philippines to Israel.

Recently, Jarque said 12 travel operators from Israel were able to touch base with Philippines-based travel operators particularly in Manila and Cebu.

Also, according to Jarque his office is closely coordinating with the Israel-Asian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Israel-Philippines Chamber of Commerce.

Jarque attributed this development to the active support of the Philippine Ambassador to Israel Petronila Garcia in promoting the Philippines as destination especially to wealthy Israeli travelers.

With population count of only 7.28 million, Jarque said the percentage of this group that are travelers are not “great”, however “the quality is good.”

The Philippines, is targeting the Israelis who are 18 to 21 years old, who are mostly are in the Army, and spend their vacation privilege looking for adventure.

“We have a lot of adventure destinations in the country, including eco-tourism,” Jarque said. In Davao, this group can go mountain climbing, Island Hopping in Cebu, among adventure activities.

Jarque said the Israeli arrival to the Philippines was strong five years ago, but it faded. He said there is a need to revive this potential market, not only to cover other market potentials aside from Korea, US, and Japan, but also to boost tourism receipts for the country.

Israel, a country in Western Asia located on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. It attracted a total of 50,000 Filipinos, most of them are working as caregivers.

 Last year, the State of Israel initiated stronger trade relations to the Philippines, as both countries have great opportunity to increase trade exchanges capitalizing on each other’s expertise, including tourism, through Israel Ambassador to the Philippines Zvi Aviner Vapni