Israel, which recorded 3 million international tourists in 2017, wants to woo more Indian tourists as the number of Indians visiting the country is still small, a senior official of the Ministry of Tourism of Israel said.
“Israel is an emerging destination for the Indian traveller and travel has been growing from India to Israel over the last couple of years.
“We are working towards increasing our leisure and MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) travellers while continuing our focus on existing segments using different mediums, including investing in advertising campaigns and continue to build and strengthen our travel trade relationships in the Indian market”, Mr Hassan Madah, Director,Israel Ministry of Tourism said.
Mr Hassan said, absence of direct flights from India to Tel-Aviv was the primary reason behind fewer Indians travelling to Israel. He said, there has been considerable rise in Indians travelling to Israel, after Air India began flying to Tel-Aviv on March 22 last.”Between March 22 and July 12, Air India added four new flights which indicates there is potential for growth in the number of Indian tourist to India,”he pointed out.
He said Israeli airline, Arkia was expected to start operations from December this year to fly Israeli’s to Kochi and Goa.