An Israeli-Georgia business group is working to dramatically increase Israeli tourism next year. The Israeli-Georgia Chamber of Business says that 50,000 Israeli nationals will pour into Georgia in 2010 compared to last year's 5,000.
And the chamber is reportedly developing a number of business models to ensure that its ambitious predictions come true.
Around 4,000 Georgians visit Israel annually, mostly on pilgrimages to Christian sites as each Easter and Christmas thousands of Georgian pilgrims flock to Israel.
Georgia is a deeply religious country with 80 percent of the country's 4.65 million members of the Georgian Orthodox Church.
According to the Israeli government's long-term plans, the city of Jerusalem is preparing to host an estimated 10 million international visitors in 2020.
"This is a real figure since the world has 2 billion Christians and in my opinion each of them should visit Jerusalem once in their lifetime," President Itsik Moshe of the Israeli-Georgia Chamber of Business told GBW. He projects that 15,000 Georgians would travel to Israeli on sightseeing tours in 2020.
A delegation from Jerusalem visited Georgia last week to foster closer ties between the holy city and the Georgia's historic city Mtskheta.
Yehiel Bar, head of the Tourism
Department, led the delegation that arrived May 29. Under an agreement hammered out last week, both cities will contribute to promoting bilateral tourism.
One of the first initiatives will be Georgia's place this August in the 34th International Arts Fair at the Khutsot Hayoster Exhibition Center in Jerusalem.
Moshe of the Israeli-Georgian Chamber says that due to the global economic crisis the number of Israeli tourists to Turkey has declined. He believes Georgia may become 'a fascinating alternative' in the future. To this end he is working on bringing a leading Israel-based tour operator to Georgia.
Already six tourism companies in Israel are cooperating with their counterparts here in Georgia.
"Approximately 3 million people travel from Israel [to other countries] for tourist purposes," Moshe says. "Turkey alone hosts 500,000 of them. For instance, there are 16 flights to Antalya, a popular Turkish resort, each day during the summer... and I observe interest towards Georgia continues to rise."
Moshe's optimism is based on statistics from previous years.
Since 2004, Israeli tourism has seen 100 percent rise, according to the chamber's own figures. This leads Moshe to predict that in case visa procedures are eased for Georgian citizens by Israel, bilateral tourism flow could reach 80,000 annually.
The chamber's tourism promotion plans also include asking the Israeli government separating tourism budget for Georgia from the unified budget for former Soviet countries (Commonwealth of Independent States). The chamber, along with Israeli Embassy in Tbilisi, will supervise the funds. |
