Sino wave

September 22, 2008 - 7:32 PM by Harry · 6 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, General, Travel

A Chinese tourist in Jerusalem's Old City Much is constantly being written about how tourism to Israel is on the rise, but nearly all of the hoopla focuses on the Western European and North American markets. East Asians in Israel are usually here as foreign laborers, but a recent report by China View cites a growing trend of Chinese tourists to Israel.

Officials at the Israeli Ministry of Tourism ought to be drooling over this potential, given that the Chinese populace is currently estimated to be numbered at well over 1.3 individuals. So far, 2008 has shown a 45% increase in Chinese tourist arrivals here, and Israeli officials are aiming for a grand total of 15,000 Chinese visitors by the end of December.

It’s estimated that about 50 million Chinese tour in Israel’s neck of the woods, but very few of these actually make it to Israel. “We need to prepare to absorb some of that,” Israeli Tourism Minister Ruhama Avraham-Balila announced at a press conference in China in early September.

The Chinese government has approved Israel as an acceptable destination for its citizens, paving the way for the first-ever organized Chinese tour group, of 80 people, to land later this week. China Air is also supposedly looking into the feasibility of launching a regular flight route between the two countries.

And the list of progress fronts on the bureaucratic level goes on….

The preparations to receive the Chinese tourist and adapt the tourism product to meet their particular needs include training Chinese-speaking tour guides, chefs in hotel restaurants, recruiting Chinese-speaking employees in the hotel and tourism industries, translating informational material, maps, brochures into Chinese, as well as providing courses to employees in the tourism industry on the unique aspects of Chinese culture.

Image courtesy Yuen-Ping aka YP from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

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