Around 25,000 Israeli tourists visited Malta between January and May thanks to the efforts of a Tel Aviv-based tour operator “brimming with energy and new ideas”, Malta’s honorary consul general to Israel Julio Blankleder told The Times Business.
Eshet Tours, which has agencies across Israel, including in Haifa and Be’er Sheva, is currently operating five weekly Air Malta charter flights in what Mr Blankleder described as a “tremendous initiative that was costing Malta nothing”.
Mr Blankleder said he was confident the momentum of the current traffic will be sustained.
The tour operator recently arranged for a five-member TV crew to travel to the island to produce a 40-minute documentary. The film will be shown on board national carrier El Al’s aircraft for four months to a potential 400 passengers on each flight for a total of 18 hours a day.
Eshet Tours originally began to market Malta a year ago and operated three charter flights a week throughout last winter.
It will operate five charter flights until the end of October and hopes to operate three charter flights between November and March.
Encouraged by the numbers, Mr Blankleder said daily flights could be in the offing next summer.
Mr Blankleder said the traffic this year was significant, especially, he recalled, as in his first year as honorary consul for Malta in 1994, 5,000 Israeli passengers had travelled to the island.
The Uruguay-born honorary consul, who has 52 years’ experience in civil aviation, explained he encouraged Eshet Tours to market Malta while it was looking for a new destination to add to its portfolio.
Eshet Tours, he said, is currently running a major campaign advertising Malta to Israelis as the “new attraction in the Mediterranean” in a strategy that also involved route buses.
Mr Blankleder, 76, was in Malta this week for the biennial Consuls Meeting hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the Le Meridien in St Julian’s between Sunday and Tuesday.
The programme inlcuded presentations by entrepreneurs investing in Malta, Finance Malta, the Central Visa Unit, the Malta Tourism Authority, Gozo Minister Giovanna Debono, Malta Enterprise, the Federation of English Language Teaching Organisations Malta, and on shipping and aircraft registration possibilities.
The consuls attended 90-minute regional meetings and members of the Malta Chamber of Enterprise, Commerce and Industry, and visited Malta Trade Fair in Ta’ Qali.