Correspondents' Correspondence
Correspondents' Correspondence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS. Israeli Tourism Tel Avrv-there are some indications...
...Some critics also claim that tourist authorities, in an effort to boost total figures, do too much to lure young people and middle-income visitors who cannot afford to pay for Israel's expensive investment in its mushrooming luxury hotels...
...Not surprisingly, adjustment to their new surroundings is difficult...
...Aside from the continuing threat of terrorism, however, some experts believe that less dramatic and more serious long-term factors are hampering the tourist industry, which brought Israel some $212 million in foreign income last year...
...In what contacts they do have with native populations, the migrants commonly encounter a hostility that results from prejudice, fear, or simply a clash of cultures...
...musical events, while excellent, are usually sold out long in advance...
...And even should the remaining months of this year show a similar growth, 1973 will end up, at best, with the same total number of visitors as last year...
...Special attention was brought to this problem by a recent series of newspaper articles on the concentration of German-Jewish money in hotel (and other kinds of) construction...
...At present, the Ministry of Tourism provides most of the financing for building new hotels, part of it in the form of outright grants, the rest in cheap, long-term loans...
...More significantly, does it make sense to encourage mass tourism, which affords only a very narrow margin of profit...
...Incidents of unrest, including suicides in Italy and race riots in tranquil Holland, have already flared up across the Continent...
...One can find few foreigners staying in any of the luxurious hotels along the Mediterranean coast just to swim, soak up sun, and rest...
...a similar program is being prepared in Spain...
...Courses in foreign languages are also being initiated in a number of countries...
...Early last month, the deportation of a Swiss minister, accused by the French government of fomenting strikes among Tunisian workers in Southern France, led to widespread demonstrations on his behalf...
...The clustering of their hotels in Tel Aviv's seashore Hayarkon Street has led residents to derisively dub it "Frankfurt Strasse...
...But it is still way behind the 11 per cent gain registered in 1972 over 1971...
...The measures adopted thus far by both host and home nations are little more than a start, however, and the problem of a foreign, alienated work force is probably going to be with Western Europe for a long time.-thomas Land...
...Whether they stay with cousins or in hotels, they rush about and admire what they see-but very seldom relax...
...Moreover, the ministry maintains that for Israel tourism is not merely a source of income but a way of establishing personal ties, especially with the younger generation...
...Beyond these specific issues, though, some Israeli economists are beginning to pose two basic questions: Has the nation built too many luxury hotels at a high cost per room which it now has to rent at medium or low rates...
...Although migrants are not eligible to vote in regular elections, or to be elected to public office, they now have a means of airing their views on such matters as housing, employment, schooling, and other issues that affect their lives...
...United Nations agencies like unesco and the International Labor Office are beginning to express interest, too...
...Yet it was not the hijackings in themselves that hurt, for apparently world travelers accept them as one of the standard risks of flying anywhere these days...
...In Marseilles this summer, 3,000 persons attended the funeral of a bus driver who was stabbed to death by an Algerian laborer...
...To do so, tourists must be induced to stay longer (most now leave after less than a week), more diversions need to be created for them to spend money on (currently there is little except sight-seeing), and a higher percentage of wealthier vacationers will have to be attracted (low-budget travelers predominate today...
...theaters, though of high quality, are in Hebrew...
...and some of the city's inhabitants even organized a "Committee for the Defense of the People of Marseilles...
...The little West German town of Troisdorf, an industrial center in Rhineland-Westphalia, prides itself on being the first community in Western Europe to set up a representative assembly chosen by resident foreign workers...
...Some tourists have complained that Israeli night life and other forms of light entertainment leave much to be desired...
...In fact, there is a growing demand in both the Knesset and the press for much stricter control of the hotel construction boom...
...transport workers walked off their jobs to protest the murder...
...Bonn stresses that "guest workers" must receive instruction before they leave home, that they should be trained to read and write their own language as well as that of the host nation...
...The situation has prompted Klaus Hufner of Berlin's Max Planck Institute for Education Research to warn: "If the governments of Western Europe continue in the present way, a serious social problem will arise in this decade...
...With increased foreign reserves as an incentive (Yugoslavia, for instance, earns an annual $840 million in wages sent to relatives), several of the less industrialized nations have begun taking steps to assist the workers...
...Rather, it was the general impression of violence created first by the massacre at the Munich Olympics and then by the Japanese suicide-attack at Lydda airport that frightened away many would-be visitors, particularly organized tour groups...
...And the knowledge that many of these German Jews earned their fortunes initially in black marketing, night clubs, and even more dubious enterprises, only heightens the antagonism toward them...
...And, perhaps even more important, Israelis themselves lead too hectic a life to provide surroundings conducive to a dolce-far-niente vacation...
...Providing the migrants with information about the relevant legislation in the countries they are going to, the West Germans add, would likewise be useful to them...
...Israeli Tourism Tel Avrv-there are some indications that Israel's tourist trade is beginning to recover from the slump of late 1972 and the first half of 1973...
...In response, the Ministry of Tourism argues that substantial improvement in tourist services will not come until the supply of facilities exceeds demand, forcing hotels to compete for their clientele...
...Fortunately, not all officials have closed their eyes to the problem or reacted solely with repressive measures...
...West Germany alone employs some 2.5 million migrants, 10 per cent of its work force-compared to 4.7 per cent only five years ago...
...And that may be more important than making a few extra million.-elia-hu Salpeter Europe's Guest Workers Bonn-It has been called the last phase in the social history of industrialization...
...The 2-3 per cent increase in July and August, as compared to the volume in the same months last year, is a significant upturn from the 6.5 per cent drop that marked the first six months of this year...
...This could be one of the reasons the country does not get a sufficiently high percentage of the "luxury tourist trade...
...Illiterate and unskilled, most of the "guest workers" are housed in deplorable slums, without access to welfare or educational services...
...Attracted by the prospect of high wages, and hoping to accumulate a nest egg that will give them a foot up on returning home, they fill the dirtiest, least desirable, most dangerous jobs available, the jobs nobody else wants to do...
...Indeed, the sum itself may well be one indicator of the problem: Coming from a total of 730,000 visitors, it averages out to about $300 each for lodgings, food, local travel, shopping, etc.-a figure that certainly could be improved upon...
...Frequently, they do not speak the language of the host nation and, being unfamiliar with the local customs, are deprived of normal sexual outlets...
...As a result, an enterprising "investor" does not have to put up much money of his own yet can make a large profit because of the inflationary drop of the real value of his debt, on the one hand, and the skyrocketing rise in real-estate values, on the other...
...Over the past 15 years, more than 9 million people seeking temporary employment have come to Western Europe from Yugoslavia, Turkey, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco -even from as far afield as black Africa, India, Korea and the Philippines...
...There are few spokesmen to express the grievances of the migrants, or to protest their living conditions...
...While tourist officials are sometimes reluctant to admit it, acts of Arab terrorism had a lot to do with the recent decline...
...Higher up, at the ministerial level, a conference is being held under the auspices of the Council of Europe to consider schemes for industrial training and for cultural integration of the migrants...
...Traveling to Israel is still largely a sentimental journey...
...The overwhelming majority of visitors are Jews who come to see the reconstruction and development of their ancestral homeland, to visit relatives living here, or both...
...The fact that these investors went back to Germany after World War II, while other survivors of the Nazi holocaust fled what for them had become an accursed land to settle in Israel or elsewhere, has made their money unpopular here...
...In Yugoslavia, Tunisia and Turkey, facilities exist to help migrants find suitable employment...
...In addition, statutes such as West Germany's 1965 Foreigner's Law give authorities considerable leeway to restrict their political activities...
...Any efforts on the part of the Western European governments, though, can only be effective if the laborers' native countries cooperate...
Vol. 56 • October 1973 • No. 19
