| Dear Educator,
Kol haKavod for deciding to bring a group to Israel. Israel Tour Connection (ITC) believes that such a trip can be a very meaningful Jewish experience for your community and a tremendous enhancement to any educational program. This is an important time for American Jews to reconnect with Israel.
Israel Tour Connection is an experienced travel company that employs Jewish educator on its staff. With years of experience in the fields of Jewish family education, supplementary education, adult education, and informal education, combined with that in planning and running Israel trips, allows Israel Tour Connection to offer you the best possible in educational Israel programs.
Israel Tour Connection is here to make the planning and implementation of your trip as simple as possible for you. To that end, we have written up this short manual, recommending steps to take to put together an Israel trip for your students. Please also refer to our websites for further information. This manual is designed for those who are seriously considering coming to Israel with Israel Tour Connection and who are beginning to plan such a trip. I welcome any feedback and additions you may wish to suggest.
Israel Tour Connection knows that what we have to offer is unlike any other Israel trip. We look forward to working with you to make this trip an unforgettable educational experience for you and your group. Please keep us informed as to how we can help you.
Sincerely, |
There is no time like the present for a family educator, informal educator, or Jewish school educator to plan on bringing his (or her) program participants to Israel. All groups visiting from abroad convey a powerful message of solidarity with fellow Jews in Israel, while helping the economy recover. The increasingly comfortable security situation makes this a wonderful time for people to act on their pent up desire to travel to Israel. The education department of Israel Tour Connection Tours has compiled this blueprint to help educators to coordinate an effective and fulfilling trip to Israel – with the hopes that every community will make such trips a yearly community event.
An Israel tour leader can be a family educator, rabbi, cantor, school educator, informal educator, or even a designated lay-leader. Whatever your position, Israel Tour Connection staff has the expertise needed to guide and support you in planning and running the Israel trip. The tour leader's role is mainly to liaise with the travelers and to work with Israel Tour Connection on customizing the trip that meets the needs of your group. The novelty and or relevance of some of the information included herein may vary among communities. Israel Tour Connection Tours is confident that you will find many helpful ideas in this booklet.
HOW DO I BEGIN?
Commitment is crucial. Experience shows that while a core group is important for planning, it is best not to make your decision conditional on there being a core group. Your ideal statement is, "I am going to lead a group to Israel, and you are all invited and urged to join me," and NOT "I will go if enough of you agree to join me." (If the leader is not firm in the decision to lead a group to Israel, others will waver.) Once you make a firm decision to go and lead your congregants to Israel, you will find yourself hosting an exciting and fascinating tour.
Then, once the trip is "on the map" it will be important to pull together a small core of committed individuals to share in the decision making process and to help you recruit other travelers. Your very first decision will be about travel dates and target population (families, adults, seniors, grandparents and grandchildren, etc.). Then, in order to arrive at a price for your trip, you will need to decide the number of nights you will be in Israel, level of hotels, number of meals included in the price. To shape the itinerary, your overall goals and vision for the trip will need to be articulated to Israel Tour Connection 's education director. If you have specific sites and activities that you wish to do in Israel, these will of course be included as well. Remember, though, you and your core committee's most important job – and the one that requires commitment – is recruitment of travelers. Without a group of travelers (aim for at least 25) there is no group trip!
WHO WILL HELP ME PLAN MY TRIP?
Israel Tour Connection TOURS is fortunate to have the services of Larry Ritter, a talented and experienced Mission Coordinator in its leadership. Large or small, he will open for your group the doors to interviews, meetings, and experiences unavailable to general tourists to Israel. Israel Tour Connection also has a full-time Jewish educator on staff. Barbara Sutnick has an MA in Jewish education and years of experience in Jewish family, informal, and adult education as well as in designing and running educational Israel trips. She will work with you individually to tailor the itinerary to fit the needs and interests of your group. Please call Larry at (800) 2 ISRAEL or e-mail him at: larry@israeltour.com . Barbara can be reached at barbara@israeltour.com – just e-mail her with your phone number and she'll call you back. In addition: Various types of sample itineraries for groups – chock full of great ideas – are available from Israel Tour Connection Tours. We will work closely with you to fine-tune an itinerary that is appealing to you and your community.
HOW FAR IN ADVANCE SHOULD I PLAN MY TRIP?
If you are just getting started as a tour leader, you should allow yourself minimally six to nine months prior to departure to get your trip off the ground (a year is even better!). The more lead time you have the better. Remember, group members need to set aside family vacation time for travel as well as funds to cover the costs. If you will be traveling at high season, seats on flights will need to be booked many months in advance – the earlier you book, the better the prices for flights.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN ONCE WE GET TO ISRAEL?
Our Israel Tour Connection representative will meet your group on arrival and be available to you throughout the tour. Israel Tour Connection Tours will supply you with a superb guide, who will accompany your tour throughout Israel. Thanks to the guides' rigorous education, combined with intensive experience in working with groups, you will be free to relax and enjoy the tour with your community. Your input as an educator will also be welcome whenever you choose to offer it. You will have time to teach, lead meaningful and spiritual tefilot, and share other supplemental insights along the way, but you will not have to handle practical administrative details.
WHAT TIME OF YEAR IS BEST TO VISIT ISRAEL?
Any time is great: go when it is best for you. If you are not tied to school vacation schedules, you can take advantage of lower, off-season rates in November through mid-March (except for x-mas vacation). During the periods from November to March, Israel has cooler temperatures. June to August is hot, and the country is virtually rainless from April through October.
HOW LONG SHOULD MY TOUR GROUP PLAN TO STAY IN ISRAEL?
To make such a significant journey worthwhile, consider a trip that has at least nine days in Israel. Ideally, however, your trip will be of two weeks' duration, to allow you to build the special group dynamic and in-depth learning experiences that an Israel trip should comprise. The opportunity for two Shabbatot together in Israel as a group is also very special. Remember that once you have paid the airfare, extra days cost relatively little!
HOW MUCH WILL THE TRIP TO ISRAEL COST?
Although the range of prices is too wide to pin down without knowing dates and number of participants, you will find that the price of a group visit to Israel is surprisingly affordable. Group pricing is significantly less expensive than going it alone. Israel Tour Connection Tours has special Air and Land rates for school and other groups. Also consider combining your group with that of another local educator for economies of scale. If you agree, we will advertise your trip dates on (www.israeltour.com) and send e-mails to our data base, in order to bring additional group participants. Remember the price of any given trip per person gets lower as the bus fills up.
IS IT REALLY SAFE TO TRAVEL TO ISRAEL?
In spite of the unrest that we all remember too well, tourists who have been visiting Israel all along report feeling safe and at ease while touring and staying in Israel. Ask someone who has been to Israel recently – then see for yourself. Your groups' security and safety is our number one priority. Itineraries are approved both in advance and daily with Israel security authorities. |
