ISRAEL

ISRAEL

The IGTO is pinning all its hopes on Eilat to lift UK visitor numbers in the coming season.

THE Israel Government Tourist Office is ploughing its entire autumn 2000 advertising budget into a campaign for Eilat to try to push UK visitor figures past 55,000 this season.

The £500,000 campaign starts this month and runs until late November. It will include posters on buses and cabs in London, as well as nationwide magazine and press adverts.

IGTO director Amnon Lipzin said the adverts will highlight the actual product on sale, promoting both the destination and the operators.

“The campaign is not just designed to tell people about Eilat, but to sell tour operators’ holidays,” Lipzin said. “That is very important because it can be hard for us to compete with cheaper markets. Eilat is a quality destination, it will never be sold as a £99 package.”

The decision to focus the entire winter campaign on Eilat – it usually includes ads to promote Jerusalem and the Dead Sea too – has met with a mixed response from operators.

Peltours marketing manager Darren Panto said it was a shame to concentrate only on Eilat, but Longwood Holidays managing director Rafi Caplin said it was the right move.

“IGTO has a limited budget, so there is no point in spending a few pounds on promotions for a lot of areas,” he said. “You need to spend a lot on one to make it effective.

“If it is telling customers which companies go there and where they can fly from, rather than inundating people with brochures, it will be a good thing.”

Lipzin said Eilat ended last season with about 40,000 visitors from the UK – well down on the average 45,000-50,000 seen over the past decade.

“People didn’t travel in December and January for fear of the millennium bug – effectively taking out almost half of the six-month season to Eilat from the UK,” he said.

Hotel groups in the resort admit that people were also put off going on holiday because of millennium price hikes.

For the coming season, Lipzin is targeting 55,000-60,000 UK visitors, most of whom will arrive by air – there is a 25% increase in aircraft seats this season, bringing the total to 50,000 – but a sizeable number also fly into Israel through Tel Aviv and drive to Eilat through the Negev Desert, often stopping at the Dead Sea en route.

Much of the additional capacity is provided by Virgin Sun, which has entered the Eilat market this winter with a new weekly flight from Manchester.

However, Pullman is offering a new Gatwick-Eilat charter with Monarch, and Longwood Holidays is operating the Luton-Eilat service previously operated by Thomson. Longwood began the season early with its first flight from Gatwick on September 11.

Longwood managing director Rafi Caplin said that flight, plus the September 18 departure, were full by the middle of last month. “We are seeing good growth from the multiples,” said Caplin.

“The problem is that although trade awareness of Eilat is good, we are not top of agents’ list of operators to sell.”

Several operators hold regular educationals to Eilat, while IGTO has just finished its latest series of training roadshows for agents, with three dates in the south of England.

These give agents a chance to talk to Israel specialist operators and hotel groups.

“We saw around 500 participants at our last roadshow, and we’re hoping the same numbers will come to the next series,” said Lipzin.

Supplementing the roadshows will be sales and video material aimed at sales staff. “In the long run we are looking at producing a CD ROM that will be sent to every agent in the country,” he said.

“I am encouraged by the feedback from tour operators for this season,” said Lipzin.

He said IGTO has big plans for World Travel Market. “We have 200 Israeli suppliers, plus private-sector exhibitors, and look forward to hosting agents at our pavillion.”

Sun, sea and sand: Eilat is to benefit from a £500,000 advertising campaign, which will involve posters on buses and cabs and adverts in national press