What Is personal Tourism
Keruv Levavot – Bringing Hearts Closer
"There is a story behind every door. I lead visitors in Israel to the stories closest to their hearts," says Erez Strasburg, CEO of "personal Tourism ". His company hosts tourists, businessman and families from abroad in accordance with their timetable, their fields of interest and the diversity they bring with them.
70% of the tourists/visitors to Israel are repeat visitors. They have already seen the traditional tourist attractions and seek a unique personal experience. Erez Strasburg, who is familiar with the American community and others, is the perfect guide. His personal stories, his attentiveness and his curiosity about the visitor's background make all the difference between a conventional tour and a personal experience. The encounters with people and places remain fixed in visitors' hearts for a long time and bring them back to Israel time and time again.
"As someone who worked as a shaliach to the San-Diego community, I understand the wish to feel Israelis for a moment or at least to get to know the unique Israeli way of life. Israel is a religious, national and cultural destination. The first two aspects have a strong lobby, but it is rare for someone to connect you as tourist to something that truly moves you."
Erez creates his trips according to the visitors' unique characteristics. Only with him can a young Bat-Mitzvah girl from London play football with a youth team in Yeruham, an Italian designer get to know Tel-Aviv on a bicycle, and a couple from New-Zealand that offers hospitality to Israelis abroad visit the house in Jerusalem where Herzl once stayed the night.
"It is my mission, as someone who is deeply connected to Israel and as a businessman who wants to make a living doing the thing I love – to connect worlds through people," says Erez. "I'm a father of three, two of them twins, and I look ahead with pride – I too have a stake in the future, in which the personal aspect will become an important part of global development and bringing people closer together."
Inspiration
Tourist by yehuda amichai
Once I sat on the steps by a gate at David's Tower. I placed my two heavy baskets at my side. A group of tourists was standing around their guide and I became their target marker.
"You see that man with the baskets? Just right of his head there's an arch from the Roman period. Just right of his head."
"But he's moving, he's moving!" I said to myself: Redemption will come only if their guide tells them, "You see that arch from the Roman period? It's not important: but next to it, left and down a bit, there sits a man who's bought fruit and vegetables for his family"
Yehuda Amichai
