El Al appeals to European Gays: Wait For the Ultra-Orthodox Response
Written by: Aaron Katsman | May 8, 2009
Things apparnetly are boring for El Al airlines so they decided to spice things up a bit. It appears that El Al is openly marketing to European Gays and Lesbians, and hoping to sell them on coming to Israel in June for Gay pride week.
According to Ynet: “According to tourism branch sources, this is the first time El Al takes such a direct and upfront approach to gay tourism, that is courted around the world by travel agencies and airlines due to the great profit potential found among this population.
On average, gay tourists spend more time vacationing than non-gay tourists and are known to be bigger spenders.
The special packages will be marketed in a no less unique way: Thousands of gay Israelis surfing the Atraf dating website were urged to invite their homosexual friends from Europe to vacation in Israel and enjoy an array of events taking place during Gay and Lesbian Pride Month this June.
The events will peak in Tel Aviv’s pride parade, that will be bigger and better than ever this year as part of the city’s centennial celebrations.
If the campaign is successful, hundreds, if not thousands of gay tourists from Europe are expected to flood the city for the first time since the pride parades started.
Tel Aviv’s gay community welcomed the joint initiative with El Al. Travel agent Russell Lord, who specializes in bringing gay tourists to Israel, said on Tuesday, “Since the campaign was launched yesterday, I’ve received many positive responses from gay tourists from Germany, Switzerland, Holland and Greece, and I didn’t believe there would be such quick responses.”
How long do you think it will take for the Israeli Hareidim, or ultra-orthodox, to announce a boycott of El Al? This should be an interesting fight. Stay tuned.
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