A FIRST IN ISRAEL: THE MINISTRY OF TOURISM HOSTS LEADERS OF COICOM – THE IBEROAMERICAN CONFRATERNITY OF CHRISTIAN COMMUNICATORS
MINISTER OF TOURISM, STAS MISEZHNIKOV: „WITHIN THE COMING YEAR WE WILL INCREASE OUR ACTIVITIES WITH COMMUNITY LEADERS FROM THE CHRISTIAN WORLD IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE THE TOURISM POTENTIAL OF HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF BELIEVERS WORLDWIDE”
Tomorrow, Tuesday, 6.12, Minister of Tourism Stas Misezhnikov will meet with the leaders of COICOM – the Iberoamerican Confraternity of Christian Communicators, in Israel as part of a seven day tour hosted by the Ministry of Tourism. The meeting will focus on efforts to promote Christian tourism from Latin America to Israel. President of the organization, Arnoland John Enns will also be in attendance.
Leaders of the organization in attendance include radio, television and internet broadcasters from the United States, Canada, Costa Rica, Columbia and Guatemala including Jeter Stanley, a senior producer from the popular Evangelical channel in the United States, CBN News. Mynor Vargas, who has a radio show broadcasted on 922 channels across 23 different countries will also be in attendance.
Over the course of their visit, which ends tomorrow, the group has visited sites central to the Christian faith, including Old Jaffa, Caeserea, Yardenit, the Galilee, Nazareth, the Dead Sea and Jerusalem. Highlights from the visit and pictures will be uploaded to the Ministry of Tourism’s website and Youtube page dedicated to promoting faith tourism.
COICOM is the only Latin American Christian organization with journalists as members, broadcasting from over 3000 Evangelical radio stations, 1500 television stations and writers from over 1000 newspapers worldwide. In addition, the organization has over 10,000 active members, leaders of Latin communities worldwide, who are promoting various Evangelical initiatives.
This is the second time that the Ministry of Tourism is initiating and hosting a delegation of senior Christian media personnel. In May, the world’s largest organization of Christian media came to Israel, whose members include various Christian media professionals broadcasting to millions around the world.
The Christian community is an essential component of incoming tourism to Israel. In 2010, over 3.45 million tourists visited Israel, of which 70% are Christian and over half pilgrims.
Minister of Tourism, Stas Misezhnikov: „Christian tourism to Israel, along its many denominations, is an important anchor in tourism to Israel of which the Ministry of Tourism has placed a lot of emphasis on marketing. Over the last year, we have increased cooperation with Christian community leaders, especially among Evangelicals, with the goal of meeting the tourism potential of a community of hundreds of millions of believers worldwide.”
