Eyal Carlin. (Source: Israel Ministry of Tourism)
TravelPulse sat down with Eyal Carlin, commissioner of North America for the Israel Ministry of Tourism, to discuss how the country is faring from a tourism standpoint following the Hamas attack on Oct. 7. Here’s what he had to say
TravelPulse: What advice do you have for US travel advisors on how they should council their clients on travel to Israel?
Eyal Carlin: I would tell them it’s not too soon to advise their clients to go to Israel. They should know that if they are staying away from the Gaza Strip area or from the northern border there is no issue with traveling around freely.
Life is going on and travel is happening. There are resources for advisors and travelers to get more information. They can contact the Israel Ministry of Tourism through our offices, which are spread out in the US, and from our travel partners in Israel – whether it’s the hoteliers or the destination management companies. There is a lot of information available and everyone is happy to share. The airlines are also a great resource and have a lot of information on logistics.
Travelers can rest assured there are best practices in place were there a situation of concern. It’s a top priority for the Israeli government to make sure all of the tourists are taken care and feel comfortable.
Again, my advice is that advisors’ clients should go – especially if clients are proactively wanting to go, then for sure. Advisors can also feel confident about giving Israel as a recommendation for their travelers. In main tourism routes they’ll definitely go undisturbed.
Jerusalem. (Source: Claudette Covey)
TP: What types of travelers are currently visiting Israel?
EC: From the US, beginning in December, we already started seeing people resuming travel to Israel. It started out as solidarity groups in December and January.
Then in February, March and April we saw the travelers broadening – it was people visiting their friends and family and people coming on tours. Christian travel resumed again in February, and they’re doing the Christian route in Israel visiting the Dead Sea and Jerusalem.
TP: What were Israel’s tourism numbers in the recent years preceding the events of Oct. 7?
EC: Pre-COVID, in 2019, we almost reached 1 million US travelers with 970,000 visitors. In 2022, on the heels of COVID, with the country only opening to tourism at the end of March, we were already at nearly 80 percent of what we were in 2019 with 840,000 or 850,000 American travelers even with the restrictions and testing requirements due to COVID.
In 2023, every month from January through September, entries to Israel from the US were at least 10 percent higher than the same month of 2019 – and remember, 2019 tourism numbers from US to Israel broke all previous entry records also. When we looked at September 2022 to September 2023 – those 12 months preceding Oct. 7 – we were at 1,070,000 American million tourists. So that was actually our record year, our best 12 months of travel. It was forecasted to continue and we were expecting to finish 2023 at 10 to 15 percent higher than the previous record number because October, November and December are usually months with a lot of travel as well.
The Baha’i Gardens in Haifa. (Source: Claudette Covey)
TP: How are tourism arrivals for this summer and the rest of 2024
EC: They are gradually growing. In February and March, they were around 30 percent of the same period in both 2019 and 2023, and now in May we’re already at 40 percent of what travel was in 2023 and in 2019. I foresee this continuing into the summer, which really isn’t bad at all.
On top of individuals traveling for family reasons, and the solidarity and Christian tour groups, we’re also now seeing teenager and young adult educational travel whose groups tour Israel for periods of two weeks to a month. So already we’re seeing several different segments of travel coming back.
I feel confident that we’ll end 2024 at 50 percent levels of what the previous years were.
TP: What are your predictions arrivals in 2025?
EC: If there is an official ceasefire or a dramatic agreement, I think we're going to go to pre-warnumbers – not immediately but we’ll finish 2025 seeing the trend we had in 2022 and 2023 (before October 7).
TP: What can you tell me about the ETA-IL system implementation? How does the program affect US travelers?
EC: We just implemented the pilot, its running and is scheduled to become effective for all travelers in August. We’re standardizing the entry process for e-visa countries or for countries with a visa waiver to Israel.
It means US travelers ‘up front’ have to spend five minutes prior to their travel signing up online. But going into Israel, it’s going to streamline the process because they’ll go through the biometric systems like Israeli citizens. It’s similar to Global Entry in the US.
Once issued, the visa is good for two years. This means no long lines for customs and immigration. It will take them only about five minutes to go from the plane to luggage claim – not bad!
TP: What’s happening on the airline front?
EC: We’re good in terms of air capacity. Delta Air Lines and United Airlines came back.
United and Delta came back to their New York routes. United, after a week and a half of flying a daily flight from Newark moved up to a double daily. Delta is operating its New York-JFK flight and both airlines are seeing good demand.
We’ll see the next level of comfort for US travelers when United and Delta resume their flights from other US destinations – for example, when Delta reintroduces its Atlanta flight and United its San Francisco, Chicago and DC flights. At the moment, we are at almost 50 weekly flights from NYC area to Tel Aviv!
El Al never stopped service and even launched its flights from Fort Lauderdale. El Al serves both coasts of the US and the Atlantic Coast from multiple points, and they have the Los Angeles flight. Some days are double dailies.
There’s a lot of increased capacity now for the summer period for US travelers to Israel and Israeli travelers to the US.
TP: How optimistic are you travel to Israel will at some point go rebound to pre-Oct. 7 levels?
EC: Geopolitically, I don't know. I am confident, though, that the travel industry will find the way to satisfy the demand and the interest people still have for Israel. So, I am optimistic about it.
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