IMTM TOURISM WEEK – OPENING EVENT
The Israel Incoming Tour Operators Association unites all of the travel agents who deal with incoming tourism to Israel.
The members of the Association are responsible for about 51% of tourist trade to the State of Israel, out of about 61% of the total business turnover in incoming tourism (promoted tourism, excluding family and business visits).
A closed meeting for members of the Israel Incoming Tour Operators Association will be held during the IMTM Exhibition.
The Ministry of Tourism assists developer, regional authorities and entrepreneurs in many ways. Through Tourbo, SMEs and regional council are assisted in accelerating their investment. The Ministry supports development with grants, throughout statutory processes, public infrastructure, marketing and much more. How can you be assisted by the Ministry, and where should you aim for? Is Sustainable Development on the agenda? Join us to discover.
Moderator: Wail Kaiuf, Head of Investment and entrepreneurship promotion
Participants
Poland meeting dialogue, include presentations by representatives of the Polish tourism as well as a lucky draw of two flight tickets, cosponsored by LOT Polish Airlines.
The travel blogging world has experienced a vast change during the Covid pandemic. Bloggers have had to reinvent themselves. How will the blogging world change, now that the skies are opening? How do 6 international leading bloggers see Israel today? Join us for a fascinating discussion about the experiences of 6 bloggers, who have experience Israel for the first time, post Covid restrictions. Moderator Natasha Kitrchuk will discuss the changes in the blogging world, and how Israel should take advantage of these changes to promote itself as an appealing destination
Moderator: Natasha Kirtchuk – TV presenter at i24NEWS and host of “Israel Business Beat”
Participants
, The beautiful coastal city of Limassol (Cyprus) introduces Cyprus’ First Integrated Resort
Thought leaders and influencers appeal to niche audiences, such as families, retirees, people who love field trips, religious audiences, and more, as opposed to the traditional press, which appeals to a wide audience.
Working with influencers and content creators to market tourist destinations promotes local tourism on a variety of platforms and reaches different audiences that are more difficult to reach in traditional ways. But each platform caters to a different audience, both in terms of age and in terms of audience type and interest. The best way to promote your destination is to reach the different audiences that you are interested in – a combination of platforms to fit your target audiences.
In this panel we will address the following issues:
Moderators:
Michal Ben-Ari Manor is a journalist and owner of Roa Olam magazine, director of the Israeli travel blogger community and a partner in organizing blogger tours around the world.
Talia Klein Perez runs the Facebook community Traveling Overseas with Kids and the accompanying magazine. Talia lectures at Ariel University about digital content development and community management and advises organizations on working with influencers.
Michal and Talia work with tourism companies and local & international tourism bureaus to organize tours for influencers and content creators, and help organize and create campaigns on blogs and social networks, in order to promote destinations to the specific audiences that suit them.
Participants (partial list):
Liri Horesh Reinman – a leading blogger and content creator on Instagram
Adi Witz – a leading blogger who addresses the ultra-Orthodox audience
Sheila Baron – a successful community manager and leading content creator on Instagram
Examples of successful collaborations will be presented by:
Dana Haftzadi – Director of this Jerusalem community and producer of influencer tours for the Jerusalem Development Authority
Tal Horesh – Public Relations Manager, Nazareth Hotels
Anna Przyłuska – Marketing Specialist, Warsaw Tourism Office
The pandemic created a paradigm shift for the tourism industry. Guides, sites, and other stakeholders shaped a new guiding language – virtual tourism. How do we guide virtually? Who is the audience? how can virtual tourism be used to attract more travelers or promote a destination? What role will virtual tourism play in post-covid recovery of the industry?
Join us for an in-depth discussion about this growing virtual-travel industry and how it will impact tourism in the years to come!
Moderator: Itamar Ben-David, Licensed Tour Guide, Co-founder of The Israeli Virtual Tourism Association.
Participants
Eyal Ben Gigi, Israel, CEO, Dive.
The official IMTM after party
So after all the mingling, networking, lectures and all the business making, it’s time to get rid of the suit, loosen up the tie and come celebrate with us!
What’s waiting for you at the party?
Good loose vibes
The entrance is for IMTM participants only
B2B Meeting between participants in the Hosted Buyers Program of the Ministry of Tourism who are coming within the framework of the Exhibition, and members of the Israel Incoming Tour Operators Association – which is responsible for bringing about 51% of the tourist trade to Israel: including organized tours, international conferences, incentive tours by international companies and organizations, and more.
Meetings will be conducted between participants in the Program and members of the Association, during which they will get to know each other and will have the opportunity to establish business collaborations intended to increase incoming tourism to Israel.
Content: The multitude of tourism destination and the increasing competition, necessitates brand thinking, which will create a unique and differentiated identity to a region. The key ingredient in regional branding success is the ability to create an identity which will serve all stake holders, will grow out of agreement, and will lead to cooperation which will strengthen the brand.
Moderator: Tal Epstein – Director, Brands Department, Israel Ministry of Tourism Participants
12:00 – 13:00 DISCUSSION PANEL
Opening: Yoel Razvozov, Israel Tourism Ministry
Keynote Speaker: Luís Araújo (ETC), Turismo de Portugal
Discussion panel: Moderator: Turismo de Portugal – Luís Araújo (ETC)
Tourism Ministry Bahrain – Minister Alzayani
Tourism Ministry Morocco – Adel el Fakir, Director General
Tourism Ministry Republic of Lithuania – Vicas Jurgutis, Vice-Minister, Ministry of Economy and Innovation
Health Ministry Israel - Adam Cutler – Deputy Division Director, Public Diplomacy & International Relations
13:00-14:00 STARTUP PITCH
Chairs: Roberto Antunes, NEST HaT Lab @ NOVA Medical School – Portugal
Itay Green, ITTS
360Click VT
Our company 360 Click VT offers 360 VR virtual tours online to the most amazing sites in Israel – the Holy Land.
Due to the pandemic, we felt the urge and need to make Israel accessible for those who live far away. Thanks to modern technology we can now bring Israel to the palm of your hand, to your living room or classroom. Through our website you will be able to walk the footsteps of Jesus at the most important churches, to hear about the most fascinating biblical and historical stories at the archeological sites, to experience the beautiful and diverse landscape and nature, to learn about architecture, art, food and culture in the colorful cities of Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv, Haifa, Akko, Tzfat and more…
Are you ready for an adventure from the comfort of your home?”
Warp UV
WarpUV is a homeland biosecurity company from Israel that tackles the threat of current and future pandemics and biohazards at their source of spread: Airports.
Airports are the facilitators and catalysts of pandemics – these spread via three transmission paths: (1) humans, (2) facilities (3) luggage/personal effects: WarpUV focuses on luggage/personal effects. The company develops AirFort®, a proprietary five (5) second fast, 360X360 ultra-violet (UV) disinfection machine that disinfects all inbound/outbound luggage and personal effects in airports. The company’s technology was successfully tested and proven at the Tel Aviv University microbial lab.
Breath of Health.
90 seconds result Breath Test diagnosing COVID19 and other infections and potential outbreaks
Bridgify
Bridgify is a B2B2C solution seeking to revolutionize the future of travel-tech, enabling travel retailers to unlock ancillary revenue and enhance their customer satisfaction and loyalty while gaining crucial data. Bridgify’s solution you can instantly connect to a wealth of travel inventory of in-destination tours and activities, providing travellers with unforgettable experiences and attractions tailored to their unique needs and interests in an white label itinerary or explore page, and enable our partners the travel retailers to diversify their offerings and increase their revenue through greater up-sell opportunities, with average margin of 14% from each transaction. Our solution provides real-time local data including COVID-19 information and availability, so that travellers can plan their journeys responsibly and in line with local pandemic regulations, ensuring that health is never compromised when organizing their trip.”
DKS
DKS STUDIOS currently offers Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality services for Cultural and Heritage Tourism. The company is currently setting Augmented Reality integration goals for Sonae Sierra’s Pilot Projects; Portuguese Air Force; Idealistic. It currently has a protocol with the DRCN (Regional Directorate of Culture of the North). With the support of the Guarantee Culture Program, DKS integrated augmented reality in 5 DRCN museums”
Emnotion
The unusually strong 2017 Atlantic hurricane season cost the region 826,100 visitors, who would have generated $741 million. The storms triggered hikes in insurance premiums of up to 40%, increasing a key cost for the area’s hotels. Our Next Generation Climate Model will optimize booking experience, travel insurance, and minimize natural catastrophic impact on health and life.”
SeeTrue AI
SeeTrue revolutionizes the current security screening process, addressing the challenges of passenger throughputs, experience and security, while enhancing social distancing and healthy travel with a new artificial intelligence approach. Our autonomous detection software solution provides automatic threat detection and alarm resolution for X-ray and CT systems in airports and seaports. This reduces the unnecessary manual inspection by more than 50%, enables scanning baggage faster, increasing safety and improving passenger experience. Our product is machine and vendor agnostic and requires zero integration, therefore match any airport system while ensuring quick onsite implementation. SeeTrue can be part of the new tourism that requires quicker, almost fully automated scanning process in order to ensure travelers smooth transition through the airport while reducing the risk for infection in long security lanes.”
Corsight AI
Seamless border control using face recognition in the crowd technology
Hop A Tour
“Hop A Tour, Ltd., provides livestream travel experiences perfect for company events, the classroom, team-building, and bringing friends and family together wherever you may be. Our live interactive tours are streamed to you in Full-HD quality by professional guides out on location. During the tour, participants can speak and text with their guide and fellow travelers in real-time. These combined features create a truly immersive social travel experience. We are working on integration to 3rd party tourism, events and leisure partners that will have relevant activities and content to our tours. Hop A Tour was selected as one of the 20 finalists of Aceler@tech Acredita Portugal April 2021 program.”
MagBiosense
In response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, airports’ anti-terror security measures were improved significantly. Similarly, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the need of countries to deal with medical security and prevent various infectious diseases from spreading. To resume crossing borders, millions of travelers will have to be screened every day. Airports’ medical security technology faces four challenges:
1) Accuracy – Very high sensitivity and specificity to prevent early-stage infected people from infecting others.
2) Throughput (and latency) – Capable of handling thousands of passengers every hour with quick time-to-result that will not impact the normal passenger experience.
3) Flexibility – Capable to detect wide range of pathogens and provisioned to adopt to new ones quickly and efficiently.
4) Low cost
The most sensitive and reliable technology for COVID-19 screening is based on PCR. Unfortunately, current PCR tests are time consuming (5–12 hours), expensive, and based on an unpleasant invasive procedure (swabs).
MagBiosense
The first to offer both ultra-high sensitivity PCR with high throughput and short turnaround time (<60 min). Our patented Magnetic Modulation Biosensing (MMB) technology is 4-9 times faster than a standard PCR, and significantly cheaper. The technology is very robust and can perform both serological and molecular assays. It has been clinically tested and proven for several infectious diseases, such as SARS-CoV-2, Zika, dengue, Influenza, and others. MagBiosense is working in collaboration with the Israeli Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Health. The MMB test is the first and only saliva-based PCR test to be approved in Israel for a clinical trial (https://www.gov.il/en/departments/news/07102021-03). The short turnaround time enables better management of the pandemic, breaks the chain of infection, and facilitates safe border crossing by millions of travelers. The system has already received the regulatory approval in Israel (AMAR) and in the process of receiving a CE mark and an FDA clearance.”
Scudo
COVID’s repeated waves, severely impacting the global tourist business, has made it clear that masks and vaccinations are not enough. Humanity needs an additional layer of defense – one that’s effective against any virus, resistant to new mutation, and independent of the long time needed to modify, test, manufacture, and roll out new vaccines and boosters.
To enable the tourist industry to recover and operate under the new normal reality, we need tools that can be deployed everywhere, tools that are readily available and can highly suppress pandemic or endemic spread via travel by air, land, or sea and in any related tourist activity such as hotels, restaurants, point of interest, events and shows.
Meet Scudo, designed to restore our civilization’s freedom to travel and socialize:
Content: During the Corona crisis the development of accessible sites and attractions continues physically and digitally. Lets update ourselves with new development, projects which have started, and projects which were opened to the public during the past 2 years.
Moderator: Noga Sher-Greco, Director of the Accessible Brand, Ministry of Tourism
Participants
The Israeli Overseas Tour Guides Association was founded in 2014 with the purpose to provide a haven for all Israeli overseas tour guides and to deal with their professional advancement.
This will be the Israeli Overseas Tour Guides Association’s fifth assembly. During the assembly, we will provide a summary of our 2019 activities and a presentation of our plans for 2020.
For more info: itla.org.il
Tuesday, March 29 | 10:00-19:00
Wednesday, March 30 | 09:00-18:00