Israel Tourism Ministry Creates Interactive PR Forum

Jerusalem ---- March 13....(INA) - A new online community from the Israel Ministry of Tourism website will connect users from all over the world. The Israel Ministry of Tourism has uploaded over 300 attractions and about 500 accommodation options in Israel to Google Maps and Google Earth, the Ministry told the Israel News Agency.

The Israel Ministry of Tourism has launched a new Internet community forum - http://community.goisrael.com - which allows global users and potential visitors to Israel to ask questions and receive recommendations and information about Israel before and during their visit. The Israel tourism site also serves as an interactive forum for information exchange, personal recommendations and travelogues, film clips and photos etc. The Israel Ministry of Tourism is interested in disseminating information related to tourism, sites, attractions and services and facilitating online chats that will promote Israel's positioning as an attractive, accessible and quality tourism destination for a wide and varied audience.

In addition to the chat forum, the new Israel tourism community website enables members to post any question related to tourism to and in Israel, using the Questions and Answers Forum. A team of licensed tour guides from the Israel Tour Guides Association will provide professional answers within 48 hours of the posting. The Frequently Asked Questions page provides information on everything from visas and safety to weather and planning your trip, covering many subjects that are often posed to Israel Government Tourist Office representatives overseas.

The Israel Ministry of Tourism recently completed a comprehensive Internet project in which 300 tourist attractions and about 500 accommodation options have been uploaded to Google, the world's most popular search engine: Google Maps, which includes maps and information from all over the world and Google Earth, which combines amazing graphics with satellite images from around the world and content overlays. The information provided by the Ministry of Tourism includes text and pictures, as well as a link to the Ministry of Tourism website: www.goisrael.com, where users can also download the relevant files.

Content Websites are very popular, particularly tourism-related sites, which are widely used as a source of additional information in planning trips. Recent research by the IMHI company revealed that 50% of European tourists visited content sites before taking their vacation and a third of all tourists changed their itineraries, hotels and even destinations in line with the recommendations of other website users.

"The new online Israel tourism community and the new link to the Google search engine facilitates a direct connection between the potential tourist and tourism enterprises in Israel, thereby creating additional marketing channels to those currently available," said Director General of the Israel Ministry of Tourism Shaul Tzemach.

"The Israel Ministry of Tourism sees great importance in increasing online marketing activities which facilitate contact with many potential audiences, the promotion of tourism to Israel and the improvement of Israel's overall image."

Cool, thanks for posting this! I have a scout-parent friend who's going this summer! I'll forward it.

2 posted on 03/13/2008 1:39:56 AM PDT by Caipirabob (Communists... Socialists... Democrats...Traitors... Who can tell the difference?)

Thank you very much, this will allow us to better plan our second trip.

My wife and I love Israel and find it to be one of the easiest countries to tour. Great food, unlimited tourist sights and very friendly people. The only thing I would like to be able to do is pack, because everyone else in the country does.

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