Can marketing and tourism help in building peace?

This blog will be slightly controversial to some people.  However, I think anything that can help in promoting peace is an idea worth considering.   Before I begin, I just want to reiterate that this blog has no political motive, instead the idea is to discuss how marketing may help in promoting peace in one of the worlds holiest and violent places.

Recently I came across an article in the Israeli press, which talked about how tourism to the country was not improving.  This led me to do a bit of investigating.  The article said that the number of tourists to Israel has stagnated around the 2 million mark for the past 10 years or so.  Most of these are made up of Jews, and Orthodox Christians.  Others simply stayed away because of the security situation.  This has led to a losses for the tourist industry.

While the article talked about an increase in tourism if peace returned, I don’t think they’ve looked at the complete picture.  The holy lands are of importance to 3 of the major religions in the world, Jews, Christians, and Muslims.  The Vatican city gets about 4 million visitors a year!  Similarly, the Hajj attracts about 4 million Muslim pilgrims a year.  Now, if we had peace in the region, the tourist or pilgrim count will not only increase, I think there is a possibility of it increasing significantly.

For instance, if tourist operators would offer a pilgrimage for the Hajj that included Jerusalem, then I’m sure a large percentage of people would want to go.  I think that the holy lands have the potential to reach 10 million tourists within 5 years or so, if we get real peace.  All these tourists would obviously bring in much needed financial benefits to all.  The poverty in the Palestinian areas would surely go down.  Remember, that is one of the things which hardliners use to their advantage when recruiting.  Similarly the economy of the whole region would benefit.  Although the holy lands have had a turbulent past, I think once again real peace can bring about a financial uplift, which would lead to a long lasting peace.

Blog now gets 2500 visitors

On another note, my blog has now received 2500 visitors in the first 2 months.  It appears to be a good figure, considering the target market (i.e. middle - senior managers).  Visitors have generated about 23,000 hits and come from nearly all corners of the globe.  On average, each visitor is coming 3 times to read the blog within a month.  Interestingly 73% are repeat visitors, whereas the remaining 27% have visited for the first time.  The top 5 countries in terms of visitors are 1. UK, 2. USA, 3. The Netherlands, 4. Canada, 5. EU.  Here is a full list of the countries, in case you’re interested.

Australia
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
China
Denmark
European countries
Finland
France
Germany
Great Britain
Greece
Hungary
India
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Japan
Jordan
Kenya
Latvia
Macau
Malaysia
Mexico
Netherlands
Netherlands Antilles
New Zealand
Oman
Pakistan
Philippines
Portugal
Puerto Rico
Qatar
Romania
Russian Federation
Singapore
Slovenia
South Africa
South Korea
Spain
Sri Lanka
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Trinidad and Tobago
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United States

Floods in Pakistan

Finally, once again just wanted to remind everyone that the floods have not stopped.  Instead they are going down through the Indus river towards the southern province of Sindh.  Researchers now believe that a similar flood wiped out the highly advanced Indus Valley Civilization that existed here several thousand years ago!  I would personally like to thank all those who sent me messages, and those who have donated.