Due to the armed conflict between the Palestinian armed group Hamas and Israel, major domestic travel agencies have completely stopped selling travel products for pilgrimage to Israel.
The travel industry said that it would not be easy to travel to Israel until at least the end of the year, but predicted that there would be no serious hit to sales.
On the 11th, major travel agencies such as Hana Tour, Mode Tour, and Yellow Balloon stopped selling travel products to Israel and began canceling tours without fees.
Hana Tour is canceling three package tours to Israel that were scheduled to depart this month and providing full refunds. A Hana Tour official said, “Products departing next week have been cancelled, and it appears that it will be difficult to proceed with future products given the current atmosphere.”
Modetour has asked the two teams who booked package tours scheduled to leave Israel this month to cancel or choose to participate in other travel plans. In case of cancellation, a full refund will be issued.
Yellow Balloon also plans to cancel all five Israel package tours scheduled to depart this month.
According to the Israel Tourism Organization, a total of 60,000 Korean tourists visited Israel in 2019, before COVID-19. In January and February of this year, known as the peak travel season for Israel, Korea ranked first among Asian countries in visiting Israel.
Although Israel has been popular in Korea so far, the industry predicts that it will be difficult to resume travel until this year.
An official from Holy Land Travel, a travel agency specializing in pilgrimage, said, “It appears that the conflict will last until this year, so it will not be easy to create travel products for the time being.”
An official from Rodem Tours, another travel agency specializing in pilgrimage, also explained, “As a special travel advisory has been issued throughout Israel, package products can be found on the website, but you cannot actually go there.”
However, the industry predicted that there would not be a significant impact on sales as Israel accounts for only a small portion of package travel products. Since the visit is for religious purposes, it is expected that demand will recover quickly once the immediate conflict is resolved.
A Holy Land travel agency official said that there will be no immediate impact as there are many alternative travel destinations for pilgrimage in Europe and other places other than Israel.
An official from Hana Tour said, “Because we go to Israel for a pilgrimage, not a general package tour, demand will reappear once the current conflict atmosphere subsides.” He added, “It is an area where armed conflicts were frequent in the first place, so this conflict will affect overall travel demand.” “It won’t have a big impact,” he predicted.
An official from Modetour also said, “Israel is a region specialized for pilgrimage, so it accounts for a low percentage of overall products,” and added, “There will be no real hit to sales.”
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.