Palestine/Israel Alternative Tours - www.ToursinEnglish.com
ToursinEnglish.com provides tours that are informative and analytical, covering the history, culture, and political geography of Palestine (West Bank) and Israel. The tours benefit the indigenous population through engaging local guides, overnight stays with families, visits to local craft workshops, and advocating a just and peaceful solution to the conflict.
The itineraries include interaction with Palestinians and Israelis, and visit areas that embody the history and current status of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and between Israel's Jewish, Palestinian-Arab, and Bedouin citizens. The complex mosaic of religions, nationalities, and ...
About You
Contact Information
Title
Mr.
First name
Fred
Last name
Schlomka
Your job title
Director
Name of your organization
ToursinEnglish.com
Organization type
business
Annual budget/currency
$75,000
Mailing address
PO Box 576
Telephone number
+972-54-693-4433
Postal/Zip Code
Country
Israel
Email address
Alternative email address
Your idea
This will be the address used to plot your entry on the map.
Street Address
PO Box 576
City
Kfar Saba
State/Province
Merkaz
Postal/Zip Code
44194
Country
Israel
Geotourism Challenge Addressed by Entrant
Quality of tourist experience and educational benefit to tourists , Quality of benefit to residents for the destination , Quality of tourism management by destination leadership .
Organization size
Small (1 to 100 employees)
Indicate sector in which you principally work
Tourism-related business
Year innovation began
2007
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Indicate sector in which you principally work
History, Living culture, Indigenous people, Adventure, Education, Other.
Name Your Project
Palestine/Israel Alternative Tours - www.ToursinEnglish.com
Describe Your Idea
ToursinEnglish.com provides tours that are informative and analytical, covering the history, culture, and political geography of Palestine (West Bank) and Israel. The tours benefit the indigenous population through engaging local guides, overnight stays with families, visits to local craft workshops, and advocating a just and peaceful solution to the conflict.
The itineraries include interaction with Palestinians and Israelis, and visit areas that embody the history and current status of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and between Israel's Jewish, Palestinian-Arab, and Bedouin citizens. The complex mosaic of religions, nationalities, and ...
Innovation
What is the goal of your innovation? Please describe in one sentence the kind of impact, change, or reform your approach is intended to achieve.
Assisting Palestinian economic development and cultural appreciation, while educating visitors about the ongoing Israeli Occupation of Palestinian lands.
Please write an overview of your project. Include how your approach supports or embodies geotourism or destination stewardship. This text will appear when people scroll over the icon for your entry on the map located on the competition homepage.
ToursinEnglish.com provides tours that are informative and analytical, covering the history, culture, and political geography of Palestine (West Bank) and Israel. The tours benefit the indigenous population through engaging local guides, overnight stays with families, visits to local craft workshops, and advocating a just and peaceful solution to the conflict.
The itineraries include interaction with Palestinians and Israelis, and visit areas that embody the history and current status of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and between Israel's Jewish, Palestinian-Arab, and Bedouin citizens. The complex mosaic of religions, nationalities, and political viewpoints in the Holy Land are explored in depth. Many of the tours visit sites of historical, cultural and religious interest, placing them within the context of the ongoing analysis provided by the guides.
The tours emphasize the historical and ongoing injustice of the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank, and illuminate the historical roots of the situation. This is achieved through briefings, visits to the Separation Barrier, settlements, Checkpoints, and the segregated Arab and Jewish roads. The guides provide analysis based on:
Human Rights
Cultural self determination
Political freedom
The right to live in safety
The right to a home
Explain in detail why your approach is innovative
ToursinEnglish.com (TIE) approaches tourism through the prism of human rights, cultural autonomy, and political freedom. The vast majority of tourists to Israel never see Palestine, but are carefully steered by the tourist industry to packaged itineraries that reflect the consensus narrative of Israel, or are geared towards pilgrim tourists. Most visitors never meet the Arab citizens of Israel or Palestinians in the West Bank.
TIE is the only Israeli tour agency that specializes in building relationships with Palestinian counterparts, has endorsed the Palestinian tourism Code of Conduct, (http://www.toursinenglish.com/2008/01/code-of-conduct-for-tourism-in-hol...), and ensures that visitors hear the Palestinian narrative directly from residents of refugee camps, Bedouin villages, farms, and towns. In addition our guests can stay in family homes and thus become embedded in communities that ‘regular tourists’ have no access to. Indeed the Israeli tour industry actively discourages people from visiting Palestinian areas both inside Israel and in the Occupied Territories.
In addition to the tours, the briefings, analysis, and visits to Palestinian and Israeli peace and human rights organizations, help visitors understand the situation on the ground, and gives them direct access to source information rarely seen or heard in the international media.
Impact
Describe the degree of success you have had to date. How do you measure, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the impact on sustainability or enhancement of local culture, environment, heritage, or aesthetics? How has it transformed or contributed to the power of place or demonstrated the sustainability of tourism? How does your approach minimize negative impacts?
Over 800 visitors took the tours in 2008. Feedback from them is regularly solicited through anonymous online surveys and is almost uniformly positive plus constructive criticism for improvement. Over $16,000 was returned to the Palestinian economy last year though payments to tour guides, drivers, and hosting families. Sustainability is enhanced through diverting tourist dollars from the mainstream that mainly benefits corporate agencies and hotels, into the lower end of the economy where the multiplier effect impacts on local communities. Personal interaction in Bedouin and Palestinian villages often motivates visitors to further involvement after they return to their countries. This results in donations to local self help organizations and return visits as volunteers. Patronage of craft workshops encourages the further preservation of local craft traditions. Through the education aspect of the tours, some visitors also become involved in the peace and justice issues which helps local people to understand that their cause is supported from abroad, and stimulates further involvement in peace organizations by the visitors when they return home. Only through the just end to the conflict will the indigenous Palestinians and Bedouin manage to preserve their culture currently under siege.
In what ways are local residents actively involved in your work, including participation and community input? How has the community responded to or benefited from your approach?
Local people help design of the tours, and are hired as guides. Relationships built on mutual respect have resulted in itineraries where the visitors interact with community residents as a planned and informal part of the tours. The communities have overwhelmingly responded positively evidenced by the close personal relationships that the Director now has with farmers, villagers, and townsfolk throughout the West Bank and Negev Desert. The benefits for local people include personal contact with internationals who otherwise never visit their communities, cash flow into the families, and political support for their cause for freedom, and hope for the future.
How does your program promote traveler enthusiasm, satisfaction, and engagement with the locale?
Travelers are able to visit communities, and see the infrastructure of Occupation in a manner that encourages discussion, debate, and awareness. Through having tea with a Palestinian farmer and walking his fields, having lunch with a Bedouin schoolteacher, or discussing housing issues with a resident of a refugee camp, the visitors become engaged in an informal fashion with local people. The dynamic and discussion during the tours are facilitated by the guide, so that the travelers feel that they are engaged in a travelling seminar, both educational and enjoyable.
Describe how your work helps travelers and local residents better understand the value of the area's cultural and natural heritage, and educates them on local environmental issues.
Israel and Palestine have acute water issues that are highlighted during the tours. From the Sea of Galilee and West Bank aquifers being depleted by Israel; to the the shrinking Dead Sea; to the poisoning of Bedouin fields by the Israeli Agriculture Ministry. Ecological and environmental/political issues are often central to the daily concerns of many Palestinian and Bedouin people. Visits to wells, sink-holes, and villages without water are integrated into many of the tours. After sixty years of Occupation indigenous locals are keenly aware of the deterioration of their natural culture and a topic of discussion during visits.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
How is your initiative currently financed? If available, provide information on your finances and organization that could help others. Please list: Annual budget, annual revenue generated, size of part-time, full-time and volunteer staff.
All revenues are generated from the tours. There is no subsidy funding.
2008
$48,635 – TOTAL INCOME
EXPENSES
$16,200 – Nine part-time Palestinian guides and transport
$6,210 – Three Israeli guides and transport
$6,860 – Company van expenses
$9,053 – Operating expenses, adverts, office, internet, phone etc.
$38,323 – TOTAL EXPENSES
$10,312 – net income
Projected gross income for 2009 is $75,000. The organization is a sole proprietorship. The Director works full-time+ and expects a full-time income by January 2010. The enterprise is internet-based using a well optimized website, social networks, email-newsletters, and Twitter to generate traffic, plus leafleting of hotels and hostels. All tours can be reserved online. The business is managed from a home office, and in the field from a laptop utilizing Israel’s network of free hot spots and cellular data services for on-the-road management. The director conducts tours, created and manages the website, uses online database, project management and telephony services.
Is your initiative financially and organizationally sustainable? If not, what is required to make it so? Is there a potential demand for your innovation?
The business is developing on a steady growth curve, projected to reach the break-even point in late 2009 when the Director will start receiving a full-time salary. A number of factors are contributing to this success:
1. Diversification: 16 day-tours, home stays and guest houses, multi-day tours.
2. Marketing: 2009 Lonely Planet guide, International media articles, increased leafleting, widening travel agent contacts and referral clients.
The growth of the business has paralleled the increase in both services and marketing, indicating that once travelers are aware of the service, they respond by booking tours.
What are the main barriers you encounter in managing, implementing, or replicating your innovation? What barriers keep your program from having greater impact?
The main barrier is lack of capital for marketing. The online management system, and the network of tour guides is solid. However the services are currently underutilized. The Director has extensive experience managing much larger organizations in the past and will implement management changes as the business grows: office space, admin assistant etc. The impact of the tours will rise in concert with an increase in clients. Over 3 million visitors came to Israel in 2008. Only a tiny percentage of them went further into the West Bank than Bethlehem. Targeting a small slice of the 3 million tourists is the challenge for 2009. ToursinEnglish.com doesn’t need 3 million clients. However an increase to 1,500 in 2009 and 3,000 in 2010 is necessary for healthy growth, and the key is marketing.
What is your plan to expand or further develop your approach? Please indicate where/how you would like to grow or enhance your innovation, or have others do so.
ToursinHebrew.com is the next step, offering similar tours aimed at Israelis, who often do not know Palestinian culture, and are ignorant of the mechanics of the Occupation. Once the tours are self-supporting in Palestine/Israel then alternative tours will be offered into the Sinai and Jordan. The model of combining cultural tourism with political awareness can be applied to many regions. AlternativeTours.com has already been registered with the view to expand or find partners in other countries. Cultural tourism in regions of conflict is a small but growing genre and ToursinEnglish.com intends to stay on the cutting edge.
The Story
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers' marketing material.
Fred Schlomka has been involved professionally with Israeli/Palestinian relationships for ten years. His mother’s family has lived in Palestine/Israel for seven generations and his father was a refugee from Nazi Germany. In addition to managing ToursinEnglish.com, he is active in the Israeli peace and justice movement. In 2003 Fred was awarded a Social Entrepreneur Fellowship from the Echoing Green Foundation and established Mosaic Communities, an Arab/Jewish housing organization. He has lectured on Israeli/Palestinian issues in Europe and the USA, and his articles have been published widely. Fred lives near Tel Aviv with his wife and two children.
What is the origin of your innovation? Tell the Changemakers and media communities what prompted you to start this initiative.
For almost ten years I have been giving tours of the West Bank to diplomats, journalists, and activists from abroad, both privately and in various capacities for human rights organizations. This included a period when I was Operations Manager, then Board Member of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and also as Executive Director of Mosaic Communities.
During 2007 I noticed that various Jewish settler organizations were publicly advertising tours to West Bank settlements with two goals in mind. They were trying to encourage more Israelis to move to the Occupied territories, and also stimulate investment from wealthy individuals from abroad. The settler organizations have been very successful over the years, as is indicated from the continuing and dramatic increase in the number of settlers, which is now over 500,000 people.
I decided that there needed to be a counterpoint to the settler tours.
As I researched the tourist market, I found that while several Palestinian and Israeli non-profit organizations (NGOs) were offering ‘alternative tours’, there was no agency that offered a comprehensive selection of tours and accommodations aimed at educating visitors and providing a cultural experience that would benefit the local population. Keep in mind that the Palestinian economy has been in a nose-dive since the Al Aksa Intifada of 2000, and the subsequent Israeli restrictions on movement of labor, materials, and commerce.
I realized I was in a unique position due to my wide range of trusted contacts in the West Bank, my knowledge of the region, my experience with tours, and my ability to ‘get things done’. Any enterprise that assists Palestinian economic development, consistent with the principals of a just peace, is welcome by most people in the West Bank. However as an Israeli, I am initially suspect for obvious reasons, outside my circle of Palestinian colleagues, and therefore needed to proceed carefully.
So I decided that there needed to be a counterpoint to the settler tours, and started a little web-based business initially with a single tour of the Greater Jerusalem area that was based on the tour I helped develop for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. As I added more tours, I carefully expanded my existing circle of Palestinian colleagues, and developed the mission of the enterprise consistent with politically viable cross border relationships. As a result the business has kept expanding its reach, and an ever-growing network of people and communities are benefiting from the activities.
Describe some unique tourist experiences that your approach provides. Be specific; give illustrative examples.
Visiting the Negev Bedouin is an eye-opener for most people. The ‘Bedouin Reality Tour’ takes visitors to an unrecognized village, a representative shanty town where people live without any utilities or government services. The village of Alsera is unique. The only educated man in the village, schoolteacher Khalil Alamour, has devoted himself to raising the standard of living for his family and community.
The visitors see the solar panels, piped water, and an ingenious wireless internet network that Khalil has introduced, and have lunch in his home. They also visit a Bedouin animal market, one of the few truly indigenous activities of the Bedouin men who bargain for the purchase of goats and camels.
During the tour the visitors learn about the 65,000 Bedouin (Israeli citizens) that live in the ‘unrecognized villages’, and the government’s activities designed to evict them from their patrimony though demolishing their homes and poisoning their fields. They learn about the feared ‘Green Patrol’, the paramilitary arm of the Agriculture ministry that enforces the government’s mandate to herd the Bedouin into the seven reservation townships.
Visitors also have the option of spending a up to three days at the village as guests in Khalil’s home.
What types of partnerships or professional development would be most beneficial in spreading your innovation?
Developing partnerships with tour agencies abroad that have a clientele looking for new and different experiences would be helpful. Most of the marketing so far has been aimed at internet browsers and leafleting hostels and hotels. However this has a limit of effectiveness. The well optimized website already manages to steer many people ‘Googling’ for information on tours in the region, but many travelers still use travel agencies and tour packagers to organize their trips. A network of these types of organizations in different countries, promoting the offerings of TIE would be beneficial.
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| Bedouin-meal-negev-desert.JPG | 252.53 KB |
| Hiking-central-west-bank.JPG | 262.82 KB |
| Jerusalem-pizgat Zeev-separation-wall-israel-palestine.JPG | 189.78 KB |
| jaffa-walking-tour-israel.JPG | 309.2 KB |
| Bethlehem-wall.JPG | 233.84 KB |
| Bedouin-children-negev-israel.jpg | 242.24 KB |
| weaving-likiya-bedouin-negev-israel.JPG | 221.6 KB |
| glass-blower-hebron-west-bank.JPG | 221.84 KB |
 | 162 weeks agoFred Schlomka submitted this idea. |
