El Al Offers Low Cost Israel Travel Packages to Gay Tourists

Tel Aviv, Israel – May 22, 2009– EL AL, Israel's national airline has launched a marketing campaign offering exclusive travel packages to the European gay community. The month of June is a significant time in Israel with Gay and Lesbian Pride events taking place all over the city during the month.

Israel's national El Al Airlines officially began last week targeting Europe's gay community with low cost flights to Israel and discounted complete travel packages including hotels and car hire.

The special packages in partnership with both the Tel Aviv Tourist Association and the 'Rov Hair' movement include the round trip flights to Israel from many Europe locations and a three-night stay in a Tel Aviv hotel. Prices start as low as€250

Every June Tel Aviv hosts a range of gay celebrations, this year with the city celebrating its centennial, the budget has reached NIS 400,000 to include the Israel gay pride parade, a large communal gay picnic, gay book fair, film festival, and much more.

This is the first time El Al has developed such an approach to the potential opportunities of gay tourism to Israel. For many years travel agencies have sought to develop relationships with airlines, tourist associations and hotels to create new vacation channels for this high spending tourist sector. If this year's campaign is successful, the potential is for thousands of new tourists from Europe to arrive in Israel for what could become an annual campaign for ELAL.

Tel Aviv's gay community has publicly welcomed the initiative with El Al. Travel agents who specialize in gay tourists have also reported an immediate buzz of interest and excitement leading to many enquiries from their gay clientele from countries including; Germany, Switzerland, UK, Holland and Italy.

In the past tourists (including gay and lesbian travelers) have not considered coming to Israel due to the perception of expensive flights and lack of viable weekend packages deals.

El Al's spokesperson's office said the company "is cooperating with the Tel Aviv Municipality and the Hotel Association in a variety of offers for various crowds, in order to promote tourism to Israel".

About EL AL
In 2009, ELAL Celebrates 61 years of service as Israel's National Airline Carrier. Across the World, EL AL flies to more than 40 destinations from Israel. The airline has annual revenues of approximately $1.93 billion and carries more than 1.8 million passengers every year.

EL AL embodies Israel's values of innovation and caring and the promise of a genuine Israeli welcome. Your Israel experience begins with EL AL with warm Israeli hospitality and the highest trained Israeli pilots will fly you to Israel and back while you enjoy enhanced in-flight dining with freshly prepared healthy meals. EL AL. It's not just an airline. It's Israel.