The year 2000 is one predicted to attract a record number of tourists to the Holy Land. In light of this, Israel and the Palestinian Authority have joined forces to ensure that Christian pilgrims as well as tourists seeking the sun, sea and a land with a fascinating history will enjoy their stay.
by Simon Griver
"The year 2000 means much more than tourism," explains Shlomo Dror, Spokesman for the Coordinator of Activities in the Administered Territories at the Ministry of Defense. "As the birthplace of Jesus 2000 years ago, the entire world will be looking towards Israel. TV stations will be broadcasting from here and newspapers will be reporting from here. This is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss. Even people who will not visit Israel next year may become interested in us [through the increased media coverage] and visit in subsequent years."
Dror anticipates that between four and eight million people will visit Israel in the year 2000, compared to approximately two-and-a-half million annually in the past few years. This will pose a logistic challenge to both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, with overcrowding at the holy sites in Jerusalem, especially the Via Dolorosa and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and at the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem (under the control of the Palestinian Authority).
Other sites of major interest include Jericho (Palestinian Authority) and the nearby baptismal site at the River Jordan (Israeli military control), as well as Nazareth where Jesus was raised, and the Sea of Galilee where he preached his sermons.
A program devised by Dr. Yitzhak Magen, Chief Archeologist of Israel's Ministry of Defense, to ease tourist overcrowding in the Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Jericho regions calls for the development of other important Christian sites in the region. These include St. George's Monastery in the picturesque Wadi Kelt, Dir Hajla, a monastery near Jericho, and the remains of Byzantine monasteries in Ma'ale Adumim and Mishor Adumin.
With millions of Christian pilgrims expected to visit the Holy Land, seven joint Israeli-Palestinian coordinating committees have been set up which will deal with transportation, transit crossings, accommodation, marketing, information, joint projects and security.
The first two committees -
those involved with transportation and transit crossings -
will tackle the complex logistics of the movement of tens of thousands of people each day. The transit crossings into Bethlehem and Hebron are being widened, and to ease the pressure on Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport, two other airports (Gaza International Airport and Jerusalem's Atarot airport) will be used.
Israel has nearly 50,000 hotel and guesthouse rooms, including 8,000 in the Jerusalem area. The Palestinians have 4,000 rooms in Bethlehem and Jericho and an additional 3,000 rooms in Gaza. Exchange of information in the Accommodation Committee will ensure optimum use of this limited number of rooms. Moreover, while it is too late to build additional hotels, apartment owners in both Israel and the Palestinian Authority could provide thousands of extra, and highly profitable, bed-and-breakfast rooms.
The Marketing Committee will promote and advertise pilgrimage tours to the Holy Land, while the Information Committee will report problems that may snag promotion such as logistics or bad service. The Joint Projects Committee will arrange major millennium events such as concerts or arts festivals. Finally, the Committee for Security will concern itself not only with the prevention of terrorism from Muslim, Jewish or visiting Christian extremists, but also with the prevention of crime and road accidents, crowd control and the enforcement of safety standards.
"The year 2000 is a marvelous economic opportunity," stresses Dror. "We are building a tourist infrastructure and a mechanism for cooperation which will serve both Israel and the Palestinian Authority for many years to come."