Amidst Hostilities, Hospitality: One on One With Haim Gutin, Israel Tourism

PHOTO: Tel Aviv, as most of Israel, is beyond the range of rockets fired from Gaza. (Photo by David Cogswell)

After a kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers escalated into a small war with exchanges of rockets fired into Israel from Gaza and air strikes on Gaza from Israel, TravelPulse spoke to Haim Gutin, the head of the Israeli Tourism office in the U.S. about the effect of the violence on tourism in Israel.

TravelPulse: We are seeing reports of missile attacks in Israel. What are you hearing about the situation on the ground there?

Haim Guten: Well, I can tell you that we are under a massive attack of missiles from Gaza to Israel. According to the news, up until now they have shot more than 120 missiles into Israel. Regarding tourists, checking with different tour operators from the United States we had not heard that the tourists that are in Israel now (and have more than 100,000 tourists from all over the world in Israel now) are saying that they want to leave Israel. And we don’t see cancellations of tours that are going to Israel. So it looks to us that tourists understand that in Israel things like that can happen. And we are waiting to see what will be the developments today, tonight and tomorrow. Right now the situation in terms of tourism is okay. We’ll have to wait to see the next development.

Right now by the numbers of tourists visiting Israel it looks like a record year, but let’s see what happens. It’s very difficult to say what impact it will have on the travelers to Israel.

TP: What reports on you hearing on what it is like to be in Israel now?

HG: I have family there, and it’s inconvenient, but people continue to live their lives as usual. Don’t forget we have been in this story for a long time. The Israelis are getting used to it. But you know it’s inconvenient. I cannot say that it’s nice to get missiles shooting through your homeland. But we hope that it will be stopped very very soon.

TP: Where are the missiles landing?

HG: We know they are shooting them all over. Where they are being intercepted by IDS we don’t know. That’s not information that we are getting.  

TP: Isn’t most of the country out of range of the missiles?

HG: Most of the country is out of range of it and that’s what we are hearing from Israel. But we will have to see what will happen. Nobody knows exactly.

TP: I have heard from one contact in Israel that everything is normal where he is.

HG: I assume life is continuing as usual. I hear from family and friends that people continue their lives as normally and nothing has changed. So it’s premature right now to say what kind of effect it will have. We’ll have to see how long it will take to resolve the problem. Nobody knows yet.

TP: Is this different from other incidents in the past?

HG: No, we had the same thing almost two years ago and nothing has changed since then. Tourism has been going very well. So I can’t say it’s different from last time. But I will say that it’s inconvenient. I don’t think that anyone wants to be attacked by missiles.

TP: In terms of the main tourism areas, what is the effect?

HG: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the Galilee, and the north of Israel are out of range of those missiles, so that’s why I think we don’t hear anything about it. But we only know what we are just now getting. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow.

I wish that these violent acts will be stopped very very soon and tourism will continue as it is right now and growing. And we hope we will not have any casualties in the long run or the short run. Let’s hope that this wish will go through and someone is listening to it. We believe in peace and we know that the only way to solve the issues is by peace and not by shooting on each other.

TP: Do you believe tourism is a force for peace?

HG: Tourism is a dialogue between people, so tourism is a platform for people to talk to each other and solve issues between them. When it’s peaceful, people love to go and see places where people are nice to them and can host them nicely and when you shoot all over it’s not acceptable. So there is a link between tourism and peace.

I hope the tourism trend will continue and the violence will be stopped.