“I would never continue my efforts if I thought there is danger for tourists to come to visit,” said Michael Chen, consul for tourism and director of the Midwest regional branch of the Israel Government Tourist Office.
“If I thought it was dangerous, I would stay home and wait,” Chen told The Chronicle in an interview last week. “But that’s not the situation…. We still believe that people can come to Israel.”
He has the same attitude after last weekend’s terror attacks in Jerusalem and Haifa. In a telephone interview Monday, Chen said, “I don’t think people will be coming right now, or in the next few weeks,” but eventually tourists “will realize again that nothing will put them in danger directly” in Israel (see story page 20).
Indeed, one of the important ways to respond to the terrorist attacks on Israel is “to continue life” and “show the bad guys they won’t break us” and that they “can’t break our spirit,” Chen said last week.
Moreover, Chen pointed out other indicators that one can be in Israel safely. None of the foreign diplomats based in Israel nor their families has been evacuated. When a situation is truly dangerous, “that is the first thing governments will do,” he said.
Moreover, most airlines based in the U.S. and Europe continue to fly to Israel, he said. As for Israel’s own national airline, El Al, its safety record is so impressive that it was “the only airline allowed to land and take off in New York” during the first few days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Chen said.
Chen acknowledged that Israel’s tourism industry, the country’s third largest industry, has been hard hit by reactions to the recent wave of Palestinian anti-Israel violence. Tourism has decreased by about 50 percent since last year, he said.
In the year he took over the Midwest regional office, 1999, about 79,000 people from the 13-state area traveled to Israel. In 2000, the number reached “almost 100,000,” but is expected to reach only 50,000 this year — and would have been 65,000 if Sept. 11 hadn’t happened, Chen said.
Nevertheless, Chen in optimistic about the future. Though badly slowed, “the tourist traffic doesn’t stop,” he said, and many plans are being made.
Many Jewish communities in the region are planning solidarity missions, including Milwaukee (February) and Kenosha (June), which Chen said are greatly appreciated in Israel.
Moreover, Chen was in Milwaukee last week both to meet with Milwaukee Jewish Federation and other community officials, and to attend the MJF-sponsored first Milwaukee screening of a sound-and-color enhanced version of the feature film “Exodus” (1961).
The film was based on Leon Uris’ best-selling historical novel about Israel’s creation. The special re-release was intended both to remind people about why Israel exists, according to Chen, and to promote tourism, showing that one can visit sites in Israel on which the film was made.
In fact, this coming April, a special cruise ship will retrace the route of the illegal immigrant ship Exodus — the real ship on which Uris based his novel — from Cyprus to Israel, timed to arrive on Yom HaAtzmaut (Israel Independence Day, this year on April 17). This project is co-sponsored by Blazer Communications and Israel’s Ministry of Tourism, Chen said.
Chen was born in France in 1960 and moved to Israel with his family ten years later. After his military service, he first entered Israel’s computer industry, but decided he preferred working with people instead of computer monitors. “A computer can only say ‘yes’ or ‘no’; with people, you also have ‘maybe,’” he said.
He worked for the Israel Ministry of Tourism in Eilat and Sweden before coming to the U.S. Chen said that his field is not only “a great job,” but the fact that he is “promoting my country” makes him “very proud of what I’m doing.”
For more information on tourism to Israel, contact the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Israel Resource Center (414-390-5705) or the Israel Government Tourist Office (1-888-77ISRAEL), or visit www.goisrael.com. For more information on the federation’s solidarity mission, contact Anat Barkin at 414-390-5762.
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