The plan for bringing more tourists: Sports - Haaretz

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Mon., December 10, 2007 Tevet 1, 5768

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The plan for bringing more tourists: Sports

By Irit Rosenblum

Tags: tourism, sport, Israel

Israel's soccer fields do not meet international standards, and it is impossible to host tournaments with foreign teams here, said Gavri Levy, the former head of the Football Association. Hespoke Thursday at a conference on tourism and sport sponsored by the Israel Hotels Association (IHA) at the Wingate Institute, Israel's National Center for Physical Education and Sport.

Israel can use popular sports to bring in tourists, the conference concluded. The IHA will set up a group to study the issue, which will include representatives of the tourism and sports ministries, as well as travel agents, airlines and sports organizations.

"Until there are five stadiums on a reasonable level in Israel we cannot bring tournaments or teams on a European level or hold training camps. These teams prefer to travel to Turkey or Cyprus today, and not to Israel, which is unable to provide an appropriate infrastructure," Levy said.

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Tourism Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch opened the conference saying the ministry had recently received many requests to aid in developing infrastructure for sports tourism and for bringing competitions to Israel; for example, in cycling. He added that the ministry wants to promote golf tourism.

There will be 30 golf courses in Turkey within two years, said Yoav Bruck, the CEO of ISSTA Sport, and these are filled with tourists from Germany, Russia and other countries.

"Israeli tourists are unable to book places for those courses, the lines are enormous. Israel has the chance to build a magnificent golf course in the Negev, the problem is that the Israel Lands Administration is preventing that," Bruck said.

He said that at last year's conference, the director general of the ministry at the time, Eli Cohen, said: "Bring Chelsea, Barcelona or Juventus to Israel and the Tourism Ministry will help the organizers with the necessary budget."

Bruck said such statements are an example of Israeli arrogance. "The big clubs do not need us. We need to start to act to bring in simple and modest competitions; for example, to host the European Championships for synchronized swimming."

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