Minister of Tourism Yitzhak Aharonovitch, who took up his post last week, supports opening a casino to create jobs, and, more importantly, as a way to give Israelis an alternative to going to casinos in Cyprus and Bulgaria. “Let’s keep the money in Israel,” he says. “I know that there are concerns, but my job is to overcome them and see the goal.”
Aharonovitch is a former Israel Police deputy commissioner.
“I support opens skies and cutting air fares as much as possible,” says Aharonovitch. He said the committee chaired by Ministry of Tourism director general Gideon Siterman recommends open skies and the signing of an agreement with the EU. The report has not yet been released. “Everything will be open, and there’ll be open competition among all the airlines.”
Aharonovitch said that he also supports setting up a marketing authority together with tourism companies. He said this authority would be a professional body that would decide on targets and concentrate on achieving them. He added that he does not support turning the Ministry of Tourism into a government agency, as has been proposed more than once, including by the Ministry of Finance. He said that no ministry would take responsibility for a tourism agency, especially the very busy Prime Minister’s Office.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on April 1, 2007
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