Tourism4Peace Forum Mounts New Site, Campaign
The Tourism4Peace Forum (T4PF) remounted its website at http://www.tourism4peace.org/ in addition to its previous address http://www.tourism4peace.com/.
The site offers an insight into the Tourism4Peace Forum, a group of travel executives and travel industry experts from Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Palestine who work together toward facilitating border crossings and obtaining freedom of movement of tourists and tourism professionals across the region. The chairman of the Tourism4Peace Forum is Michael Nazzal, chairman of the Jordan Hotel Association.
The new Tourism4Peace Web site offers links to press releases, meetings and articles and research including additional information on Forum sponsors and contact information. The peace forum had its origins years ago in the Israel-Palestinian Tourism Forum, which had similar goals.
But the true beginning was in January 2005, when the Peres Center for Peace, in cooperation with the Israeli Hotel Managers Association, organized a regional tourism conference, entitled “Regional Tourism in the Middle East-a New Era.” Thirty tourism professionals from Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Israel took part in the conference, the first of its kind in five years.
The mission of the Tourism4Peace Forum (T4PF) is to advance peace in the Middle East through tourism. Its members believe that tourism means hospitality, which means welcoming strangers, getting to know people and developing friendships.
The forum’s aims include developing incoming tourism in the area; facilitating border crossings and obtaining freedom of movement of tourists and tourism professionals in the region and encouraging governmental agencies to assist in this effort.
Future plans call for educational trips of travel staff from the United States and Europe to visit the region, joint road shows consisting of Egyptian, Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian tourism executives and joint workshops and seminars.
