On October 8, 2023, tour guide Ori Strassberg was booked to take a family visiting from Switzerland on a three-day tour around the Negev desert, including areas near the border with Gaza. On the rebound after the COVID-19 pandemic, his calendar was filled through the end of 2023 and into 2024.

More than two years later, the Swiss family is finally looking to make good on its plans, the parents eager for their youngest daughter to experience Israel differently than she did on October 7, 2023, Strassberg said.

That day, Hamas terrorists launched an unprecedented assault on southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, taking 251 captive, plunging the region into war and bringing the country’s tourism industry to a shuddering standstill.

“There was a real boom in tourism after COVID and then October 7 came along,” said Strassberg, who immigrated to Israel from Basel in 1998.

As the war in Gaza appears to wind down following a ceasefire agreement signed on October 9, and foreign airlines begin resuming regular flights to Israel, some in the tourism industry still feel like it’s October 8.

According to experts, it will take time before tourists and visitors begin returning to Israel in large numbers, reviving the ravaged industry and contributing to the recovery of the economy.

“There is a big gap between ceasefire declarations, celebrations, and tourists arriving at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, as there are too many factors around ending this war that are not known yet,” said Yossi Fatael, director general of the Israel Inbound Tour Operators Association. “The end of the war is not the end of the image crisis that Israel has been facing during this war. It’s going to take more time to fix this issue.”

Strassberg, 51, is one of more than 7,000 licensed tour guides in the country who have remained with almost no work for more than two years.

“Since October 7, I have had no work as a tour guide or translator in Israel,” said the guide, who used to accompany not only families but also political delegations and labor groups visiting the country from Germany. “Struggling to make a living, I tried to reinvent myself, picked up part-time jobs at law firms and other places, but mostly I had to eat up........

© The Times of Israel