No, not another Rock God joining the long list of talent coming to perform in Israel in 2010, but an acknowledgment of the rising numbers of Catholic tourists visiting Israel. According to numbers released yesterday, approximately one third of tourists to Israel are Catholic, though thanks to some recent marketing moves by the Israel Tourism Ministry, those numbers increased greatly in record breaking January.
Over the last year or so, some ten million shekels was invested in promoting Catholic tourism to Israel. This included social events within Catholic communities across the world, and campaigns in tandem with the Pope’s visit last year, including a dedicated website that has seen over a million visits. In addition, Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov visited Brazil and Argentina (the first Tourism Minister to do so for a decade) and Spain and Portugal, where he pushed Jerusalem and the Holy Land, rather than Tel Aviv and Party Capital.
As a result, Catholic tourism saw a big jump in January 2010, including the following numbers:
- Italians: 6700 (up 81% from last year)
- Brazilians: 3600 (up 171% from last year)
- Poles: 6000
- French: 11,500
Tourism Minister Misezhnikov is all optimism and had this to say about the Catholic tourism stats:
Catholic tourism has great potential that has yet to be realized and, over the next few years, the Tourism Ministry will continue to promote the Israeli tourism product, stressing the religious, historical and archeological elements to this community. The Papal visit in May 2009 and its leverage via the implementation of focused marketing activities in these countries, proves that there is great demand for Israel’s tourism product by the Catholic community around the world. We will continue to work to fulfill this potential.
We say: Hail Mary and welcome to the Holy Land!