Israel, Lanka sign tourism agreement

Tourism Minister of Milinda Moragoda was in Israel from August 26 to 31 heading the Sri Lankan delegation to Israel where a bilateral agreement was signed between Israel Tourism and Sri Lanka Tourism for joint-corporation in the areas of Destination Marketing Promotions, Exchange of Research Data, Training of Staff in the Hostility Industry.

Minister of Tourism Israel Yitzhak Aharonovitz and Minister Moragoda were the signatories to the agreement which promises to promote tourism between the two countries.

The opening of the Sri Lanka Tourist Board branch office in Israel was also a highlight of the Minister's visit. The SLTB office will research the outbound travel patterns of Israelis with a focus to marketing Sri Lanka as a possible destination. A marketing specialist will be based in Israel and be proactively engaged in this effort.

Tourism Israel will assist SLTB with marketing strategies to market the destination which includes translations of promotional material from English to Hebrew. Israel Tourism saw this as an opportunity to improving the understanding between the peoples of the two countries.

Israel is interested in marketing the Holy Land to Sri Lankan Christians. For Sri Lanka there is an opportunity in the large numbers of Israelis who take long vacations in India after their rigorous compulsory military duty.

Elal Airlines the Israeli airline makes direct flights to India to facilitate these holidays. Sri Lanka can benefit by marketing the destination as a 'Twin Destination' with India. Sri Lanka already has the infrastructure to cater to this segment of the market.

The Sri Lankan delegation also learnt of how Israel managed to keep tourism going even during crisis situations and how to manage post crisis situations.

The presentations of the Israeli Tourism Ministry on how they handle crisis proved to be of great value to the delegates from Sri Lanka. The other aspect of benefit to Sri Lanka is the e technology used by them in marketing the destination.

"It was a mutually beneficial tour. We learnt a lot on crisis management. The agreement will get further cemented when a Sri Lankan Marketing expert is appointed who will plan a strategy to market Sri Lanka in Israel and vise versa.

There is a large market segment there which makes annual visits to India for long holidays if we tie up and make Sri Lanka a twin destination with India we have tapped a new market of visitors," Dileep Mudadeniya, Additional Director General, Sri Lanka Tourist Board, a member of the delegation to Israel, said.

Ministers of two countries will soon be appointing a working committee and the first working committee meeting will be held in Colombo shortly. Action plan with implementation targets will be finalised during this meeting. Discussions will also be held to operate a charter flight between the two countries thus creating facility for over 3,000 Sri Lankans who visits Israel annually.

Sri Lanka Tourism from the visit to Israel to explore a new market, will go to France on September 11th, to recapture; another important market segment. With the softening of the French Travel Advisory, the Sri Lanka French Tour Operators are preparing to promote Sri Lanka for the Fall and Winter seasons and the French Tourism Operators are scheduled to announce at their AGM on September, 2007 that destination Sri Lanka is open for sales.