PHOTO: Haim Gutin put the U.S. market on track toward a record year in 2014. (photo courtesy Israel Tourism)
Haim Gutin will leave his post as head of the Israeli Tourism Board in the U.S. on Aug. 12, completing a four-year term. He will return to Jerusalem and take a new position as senior deputy director general of the Israel Ministry of Tourism. Gutin has served a total of 33 years with the Israel Tourism Ministry, 15 of them in the U.S. He leaves as Israel Tourism is on track for a record-setting year, with tourism numbers from the U.S. increasing by 15 percent each month for the first six months of 2014. TravelPulse spoke to Gutin in his office in New York.
TravelPulse: Unfortunately, as your term as head of Israel Tourism the U.S. draws to a close, tourism has been disrupted by conflict in Israel, and now we have had an unprecedented decision by the FAA to ground flights to Israel. What is your response to that?
Haim Gutin: I have to say that the FAA decision surprised us very much and it's created a lot of problems because a lot of tourists got stuck in Israel. And many tours that were supposed to come to Israel got stuck in the United States. We hope the situation will be resolved in the next 24 hours and things will come back to how they are supposed to be. The decision is a little bit strange. I can understand it because of the missile and because of the Malaysian airline, but things like that can happen.
Yesterday I was watching CNN all day and I saw the map that they showed of all the routes you shouldn't fly. There are so many routes you shouldn't fly because they are in conflict. And still they decided not to fly to Israel. In the last 33 years I don't remember a situation like that. So it was strange for us. We hope it will be resolved and things will go back to normal and all the tours that are supposed to go will really go.
It's like the weather here. When it's bad you have to rebook again. So I hope in 48 hours the ban will end and it will be the last time it will happen because it's nothing to do with aviation. In Israel the system is very secure. There is no other airport in the world that is secure like Ben Gurion Airport with an iron dome. You are not going to find that in any other place. The message is you don't have to worry about it because millions of tourists came to Israel, millions of people left Israel. Things like that can happen all over the world. It will be resolved probably by tomorrow.
TP: After 15 years off and on in the U.S. you are heading back to Israel. Will you return again?
HG: I will be back again, I don't know in what capacity. As senior deputy director general I will visit to assist the man who will replace me. You never say no, never close the doors. You always leave a window open. I have held all the high ranking positions in the Ministry of Tourism, so I'm looking for a new challenge.
TP: You held all the top positions?
HG: Yes, as senior deputy director general for marketing, for H.R., this is my 21st position I have held in the Ministry of Tourism.
[BLURB] In Israel the system is very secure. There is no other airport in the world that is secure like Ben Gurion Airport with an iron dome. You are not going to find that in any other place. [/BLURB]
[/CALLOUT]
TP: Did you spend all of your 33 years with the Ministry in the U.S. or Israel?
HG: In one of the positions I was commissioner for Europe and I was in charge of all the IGTOs [Israel Government Tourist Office] in Europe. I was traveling a lot between Israel and Europe at the time.
TP: Over that period you must have seen a lot of changes.
HG: Yes, I've been part of the Ministry of Tourism since the beginning of the '80s. My generation of the Ministry of Tourism is the oldest generation. Because I was involved in many decisions in the Ministry of Tourism as part of HR and marketing at the time, so I saw almost everything, good times and bad times.
TP: How would you characterize the overall change from the beginning?
HG: When I started in the states in 1994 the market was totally different than it is today. We've always been focused on several channels, but in this four years we focused on two main channels. One is the travel agency market, which has changed a lot in the last decade. Many of the travel agents, about 50 percent or more are working from home. This is a big challenge, to reach them and convey the message of selling Israel as a lucrative destination.
It's much more complicated than when I started in the '90s. At that time you could go into an office of travel agents. Today you don't see so many travel agencies that people come into. Most reservations are made over the phone or via the Internet. Israel is challenged today in conveying the message and selling Israel to people that work from home. How do you get to them? What do you do to convey the message to them that it is lucrative to sell Israel in addition to selling the Bahamas and other destinations that are very easy to sell? That's a very big challenge that we dealt with over the last four years that I have been here.
The second challenge was to develop a relationship with the Christian community in the United States and Canada.
TP: Were those the main areas you worked on?
HG: Yes, we focused on that, and on how we integrate both of those things in order to sell more travel to Israel. The general market was the third challenge, and for that we dealt with a big umbrella of very intensive public relations in order to bring the message to the public of why to visit Israel and what you get as a benefit when you visit Israel as a destination.
TP: Were you breaking new ground?
HG: Yes. We went from a grassroots strategy to a new strategy to face directly the people who make the decisions. In other words, we went to the heads of the boards of different Christian denominations to speak to them directly so that they would become our ambassadors of good will and bring the message to their denominations. We succeeded in the last four years to host the boards of several big denominations in Israel. This is a big achievement. It's not only the recognition of Israel as a state and what Israel represents, but it's also a message that the Christian world is standing behind Israel, at least as a travel destination to the people who believe in the Bible and want to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.
TP: What is the breakdown in the demographics of visitors to Israel versus what it was four or five years ago?
HG: It's very difficult to say because there are not exact statistics about it, but I can say it runs between 60-65 percent Christians and then 40-45 percent general public, including the Jewish community integrated into the sophisticated travelers.
In the last four years I didn't look at the Jewish community as a separate target. I integrated them with the general public, the sophisticated travelers who travel to Israel, and tried to increase the general public to go and visit Israel. And we've done that via campaigns and a very heavy umbrella of public relations.
I can give you some examples. In the Christian market we succeeded in bringing the board of UPCI, the Southern Baptists and others. In the general public we brought USTOA, the United States Tour Operators Association, to Israel. We brought SATW, the Society of American Travel Writers, to Israel. We hosted more than 100 of them. We brought more than 300 journalists every year to Israel. And we had brought tons of celebrities to Israel; Martha Stewart, Paula Abdul are examples. Gene Simmons of Kiss produced a special on Israel. And there were many others who produced articles and videos and other things posted on Facebook and Twitter. Martha Stewart tweeted every day of the 10 days she was in Israel to more than 2 million followers.
We've been very aggressive and very involved in trying to bring the message that Israel is a normal tourist destination in a region that was uncertain because of the Arab Spring, because of an unstable economic situation in the United States. We succeeded in keeping the numbers we had had in 2010, and this year we actually started to see the breakthrough in growing numbers from the United States to Israel. And if we hadn't had this situation right now with Gaza, we would probably would have crossed the 700,000 mark of tourists from the United States from Israel in 2014. Now we will probably have to go back to the number we had in 2010, which was a record year at that time. I hope that the situation right now in Israel will not last long. So maybe it will continue to grow and by the end of the year maybe we will cross the 700,000-tourist mark.
So the goal we laid out for 1 million tourists from the U.S. by 2017 is very reachable. I hope the quietness will come back soon to the region and we can continue to bring more tourists from the United States.
[BLURB] Many of the travel agents, about 50 percent or more are working from home. This is a big challenge, to reach them and convey the message of selling Israel as a lucrative destination. It's much more complicated than when I started in the '90s. [/BLURB][/CALLOUT]
TP: 2010 was a record, but there have been some records since then haven't there?
HG: Right. In 2012 we have 3.55 million visitors, a little bit above 3.5 million, but that's from all over the world. For the United States January was the first time that we started to see the trend of growing numbers from the U.S. to Israel, and it was growing every month by 15 percent.
In 2012 we had about 630,000 from the US and about 60,000 from Canada, so we had about 700,000 from North America.
This year was a breakthrough in numbers from North America because it was growing very fast in Canada and the U.S.
That was a trend that gave very good hope and you couldn't get enough rooms in Israel because of this potential that grew very quickly. It was based on our strategy that was very intensive and aggressive in public relations, in keeping in close touch with the travel agent community and the market and to help them to understand that if you sell Israel, you can actually make money as a businessman.
TP: How many months did it grow at 15 percent?
HG: All the way till June, every month. We couldn't believe that that was the trend and we were very happy with it.
TP: That's almost unbelievable. So you changed your emphasis and you had to change your approach to travel agents. How did you do that?
HG: We put together a special course for them, for those agents who were working from home in order for them to be acquainted with the destination. You can go to our website and get to the Academy, go through a course and get a special certificate after you finish it showing you are a specialist in Israel. We have more than a thousand graduated from the course. The second step is probably in November and December when we have a fam trip going to Israel, we will take them so they can become much more knowledgeable from firsthand experience, to understand Israel through your own eyes. When we bring them home they understand the destination much better, and it's easier to sell the destination when you've been there. It's a different story when you sit in your office and you buy a package from someone and you sell it. Then you can tailor your itinerary to the needs of your client because that is the trend in the market today.
We do fam trips twice a year, once in February one in November and December. I hope my successor will continue with this strategy and will bring many more travel agents who have never been to Israel and who are eager to sell Israel. They know they can make money because we have today a very good product: high end luxury hotels and boutique hotels, hotels that can cater to the groups from the Christian market, and we have hotels that can cater to the sophisticated traveler. Whether he is a luxury traveler or less we have a product that in one small country sells to almost all the segments. For the value for the money. You get so much value for the money you are spending when you go to Israel.
TP: So when the travel agents get their certificate you take them on a fam trip?
HG: My goal is to complete the specialist course by going there and seeing it with your own eyes. It's not a new strategy in the tourism industry because every destination does it. But because agents are working from home now and not in offices there is a large clientele they have to cater to. In order to put them in a comfortable zone they have to go there, see with your own eyes, and to be confident that what you sell is a good product. That will help them to increase their volume and make money doing it. It's a business strategy. It's not only about image, but it's also a business strategy.
TP: Any closing thoughts?
HG: I am leaving on a very high note with numbers. I am very happy with the success that we have had in the last four years. I am happy that I could find the right strategy for the American market and we have become leaders in the market.
Those growing numbers are also my success in helping the tourism industry in Israel that actually employs 100,000 people directly and indirectly in Israel. I contribute to the economy of Israel a lot of jobs. If we take the formula that every 100,000 tourists create 4,000 jobs and multiply it to 700,000 tourists every year we see how many jobs I created in Israel directly and indirectly in the tourism industry. And this is a big achievement.
TP: That's great. You never know how much the ripple effect of what you do affects others.
HG: There is no way to measure what we do. We can measure it by people saying we're doing a good job, or we have a lot of articles and public relations, but to see tangible results of what you do you have to go to the economic side of it, and we have a formula in Israel that says every 100,000 visitors create 4,000 jobs. That is the essence of what we are doing.
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