Israel is once again open to all travellers, and Gal Hanna, Consul Tourism Director for Canada Israel Ministry of Tourism could not be happier. Hana sat down with TravelPulse Canada before their industry event held Thursday night in Toronto.

About 100,000 Canadians were visiting Israel before the pandemic hit, and Hana says while they’ve seen a bit of a slow start due to ongoing variants, travel restrictions and the current situation in Russia and the Ukraine, they are expecting to be on track with at least 2019’s numbers, if not higher.

“We have groups from Canada and also tons from the US; that's the biggest market that we have for Israel,” Hana explains. “They’re rushing into the country, some airline load factors are running at 80% capacity. We have new routes from the US, we have increased frequencies from Canada, including the big announcement that Air Canada is resuming operations to Israel. We are very happy with that, the numbers are very promising.”

Hana also says while faith-based tourism is still strong in Israel, the destination is becoming more of one for all travellers, partly due to a tourism rebrand that started in 2016.

“We started to see a gradual change in the portfolio of the traveller between 2016 to 2019, even at the beginning of 2020. Faith based reasons for travelling reduced from around 60% to about 35-40%. And then we also saw increased luxury and leisure travel which was very significant for us, not to compete with other destinations but because we had invested a lot into our community to elevate our product.”

The Israeli government has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the tourism economy during the past two years, which brought more luxurious hotels such as The David Kempinski Tel Aviv, promoted hiking and biking trails and increased infrastructures throughout the country during the pandemic.

They also promoted small and medium businesses such as restaurants and bars to be opened within the Old City of Jerusalem, something Hana says makes Israel so unique.

“We have very inspiring moments, such as in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. But just outside the church, you can sit down to have a drink in a very chic bar. We saw the sentiment to visit Israel has only increased over the last two years, because I think, that what people understood is that when it comes to travel, especially if it's more spiritual and meaningful, Israel was probably the one of the most amazing destinations out there. As an industry, we saw people who said 'you know what, I can postpone my trip to destination X. But I must come to Israel, because now I have different priorities. The world can come to an end in a heartbeat. And we want to come to the Holy Land before something happens'.”

Thursday night’s event was held in conjunction with the Greece Tourism board, a partnership that is rare in the travel industry, but one that Hana says they will be continuing to do.

“I believe in a regional perspective, to work collaboratively. In Israel we have strong tourism over a few months, so why not share the wealth? Why not share some of the travel trends to make sure that we will shift demands towards Greece and vice versa? When Greece has high season and they are overbooked, they can shift demands to Israel. I think that if we work together more collaboratively, I think that the message and the purpose will serve us all for the best.”

Hana wants to invite travel agents and operators specifically those who are less familiar with the country, to reach out to him to learn more.

“We are fully operational here in Toronto, and Canada holds a huge potential for Israel. In my role here, I am completely dedicated to make sure that we will fulfill this.”

Gal Hana can be reached at director-canada@goisrael.gov.il