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Minister of Tourism Stas Misezhnikov and Ministry Director-General Noaz Bar Nir will leave Thursday (16.7.09) for a working visit to North America, accompanied by representatives from the ministry. The purpose of the visit is to strengthen Jewish tourism, as well as promoting Christian-Evangelical tourism from the USA to Israel, while positioning Israel as a preferred tourism destination. 

During the 10 day visit which will include New York, Washington and California, the Minister will meet with leaders, opinion-makers and senior media personnel in the Evangelical community, including John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, and leaders of the Catholic community such as Timothy M. Dolan, Archbishop of New York, with whom he will discuss ways of leveraging the recent visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Israel. The delegation will also meet with leaders of the Jewish community, including, among others, Executive Vice Chairman Malcolm Hoenlein and other members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the President of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, John Fishel. 

Minister of Tourism Stas Misezhnikov: "The government's support of the tourism industry and the increase in the marketing budget to an unprecedented half a billion shekel for the next two years allows an allocation of 150 million shekel to strengthen and promote tourism from

North America which has been affected by the global economic crisis. There is a large unfulfilled potential in Evangelical tourism and the Tourism Ministry will work to expose the American public to the Israeli tourism product over the next few years, with an emphasis on Israel's religious, historical and archeological elements." The minister stressed that tourism from North America will remain at the top of the ministry's priorities. 

During the visit, the minister and ministry representatives will meet with the managers of the Israel Government Tourist Offices in North America and Canada in order to focus their activities on the new work program outlined by the minister, which is based on positioning Israel as the Holy Land with Jerusalem at its center. These activities will be promoted with a 70 million shekel campaign in 2009 (80 million shekel for 2010). 

North America remains the largest source country of incoming tourism to Israel. In 2008, 700,000 tourists visited from the USA (16% more than 2007). From January-May 2009, 235,000 tourists have visited from North America (10% less than the same period last year - 291,000).