Israeli tourism industry growth and international promotion strategy

Doug McKenzie, Director, Canadian Department of Tourism

Shmuel Ben Ami, Director of Tourism, Israeli Ministry of Tourism

Thanks for Canadian Tourism Promotion to Israel and Project Proposal

As the Director for Tourism in Israel and a participant in this Vancouver conference with you, I thank you for your kind promotion of tourism to my country during this very difficult time. The tourism industry is one of the pillars of our economy (3.45 million tourist arrivals in the year 2010) and I can not tell you how much the people of Israel appreciate this support in a world which is usually at best ambivalent about the Jewish state or hostile to its existence. Your support is a God send and your friendship will always resonate in our hearts. We hope to continue to build upon this friendship in the future with many joint projects between our tourism departments to promote tourism in both Canada and Israel.

What Israel Offers Today in General

Israel offers a great plethora of historical and religious sites. It also offers beach resorts, archaeological tourism sites, heritage tourism sites and ecotourism. Israel now has the highest number of museums of any country per capita in the world. Most of the countries tourists visit from the U.S., Canada, France, Russia, the UK, Russia, Germany and Italy.

Jerusalem -- the Main Attraction

Jerusalem has some 3.5 million tourist arrivals annually. One of the oldest cities in the world, it is the capital of Israel and largest city of Israel if the area and population of occupied East Jerusalem are included. The city is holy to 3 major religions, including Judaism, Christianity and also Islam. Most important is the Temple Mount site of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem with the Western Wall at its foot and with the Dome of the Rock, Al-Aqsa Mosque and Mount of Olives where Jesus preached and tradition says he ascended into heaven.

Bob McKenzie

Page 2

February 27, 2012

Future Projects-"Hot" Information List

In coordination with other countries' tourism departments, we have a link sharing service on the Israeli Department of Tourism website and our related social media sites in Facebook, Twitter and Myspace. Given our past happy history of sharing, we would like to offer this service to you where we would offer to feature top links in Canadian on our sites in exchange for your doing the same on Canadian Department of Tourism sites. Giver the growth of social networking especially, we feel that this approach has incredible potential for mutual tourism promotion, since many tourists visit certain countries on a regular basis. They then will share these links and information with their friends and family in a natural word of mouth advertising campaign. Please consider becoming part of this promotional project. Its success depends upon your help and our mutual cooperation will help your department, just as we have worked together so profitably in the past. Please refer to www.goisrael.com for more information about this project. Thank you for your attention.