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The Ministry of Tourism are to start an extensive marketing campaign aimed at attracting Christian tourists to Israel as a follow up to the Pope’s recent visit. In the coming months an advertising campaign will be aimed at the 1.3 billion followers of the Catholic Church worldwide, with the aim of increasing demand for visiting Israel.

The Ministry of Tourism’s bureaus around the world will in the coming weeks be meeting with targeted audiences and leading tourism elements in destination countries and will start a marketing campaign focusing on the different market segments.

During the Pope’s visit to Israel, he was followed by a team of photographers from the Ministry of Tourism. In the coming days a special film of the visit will be released and this will lead the overseas marketing campaign. In addition the Ministry of Tourism will use visual explanatory material from the visit, arrange conferences on the subject of pilgrimages and will market proposed special visits, arrange hospitality for shakers and movers in the Christian world accompanied by public relations exercises.

Minister of Tourism, Stas Misezhnikov reiterated that the visit of the Pope to Israel presented a strategic opportunity to bring religious tourism to Israel for the coming years and that the Ministry of Tourism would operate on all levels in order to realize this potential.

During 2008 approximately 3 million tourists visited Israel; of that number there were more than a million Catholic pilgrims. However as a result of the military operation in Gaza and the global economic crisis, the Ministry of Tourism targeted 650,000 Catholic pilgrims in 2009.

Following the visit of the Pope, the Ministry of Tourism have now revised their forecast and expect the arrival of an additional 250,000 Catholic pilgrims during the current year, making a total of 900,000 Christian pilgrims for the year 2009.