Israel Ministry of Tourism has appointed Sammy Yahia as the new Director of Tourism for India &Philippines markets effective June 3, 2019. Yahia will be responsible to lead the tourism board’s initiatives in India while overseeing the development of policies and strategies to strengthen Israel’s reputation as a world-class tourism and travel destination.
Prior to his appointment to India, Yahia was the Director of Marketing &Communications for Israel Ministry of Tourism from 2012 to May 2019.
The new Director brings great expertise and know-how to the role with extensive and holistic experience in tourism marketing, strategic government relations and investment facilitation. Commenting on his appointment, Yahia said, “I am delighted to take on this new position and look forward to working closely with various partners in India by building on existing partnerships alongside initiating new ones. India has a rich heritage, culture and history, similar to Israel, and is an exciting market for me to take charge of. I foresee ample opportunities for us to push boundaries and reinvent the ever evolving and dynamic Indian traveller”.
While talking about his vision for the India office, he added, “The arrivals from India have amassed expectations in the last few years to present some record-breaking numbers. While keeping the current momentum going, the goal is to place India as one of the top global source markets for Israel. Besides the metropolitan cities, continuing to capture Tier II cities would be the strategy to lure travellers to consider Israel for a leisure holiday offering dynamic experiences catering to varied interests. Having said this, our office will aggressively work towards increasing connectivity between India & Israel by introducing new airlines to service the route”.
Hassan Madah has headed the Israel Ministry of Tourism’s Office in India office for over 6 years, starting in October 2012. He began his journey overseeing the outbound tourism from India to Israel and opened the Israel Ministry of Tourism India Office in Mumbai in August 2015. Madah successfully achieved consistent growth from approximately 35,000 arrivals from India in 2014 to almost 71,000 in 2018. He moulded the perception of Israel from mainly being a pilgrimage country to a thriving leisure destination and ensured both segments flourished simultaneously. Under his leadership, companies like HDFC, Glenmark, UTI, Reliance, Yokohama Rubber Company, BMW, Porsche and Bombay Industrialist’s Association (BIA), among many others, have completed large scale MICE movements to Israel.
With the appointment of a new Director, Israel Ministry of Tourism hopes to surpass their achievements of last year – a whopping 21 per cent increase in Indian tourist arrivals elevating India to the 12th position among top source markets for Israel worldwide.
