Tourist? Pay up sucker
Tourists in Israel pay more in restaurants, hotels and clubs, and proprietors are not ashamed to admit it. Guess we forgot how much we missed those foreign tourists
How would you feel if you walked in to a restaurant in Paris (or Amsterdam or London or anywhere) and they handed you a separate menu with higher prices than what the locals pay? That’s what happens to French tourists in Israeli restaurants.
Yedioth Ahronoth recently published a story about the Tel Aviv restaurant “Topsy” that offers two different menus to its diners: the one in French offers the same food at 20-50 percent higher prices than the Hebrew menu.
The discovery not only angered the French tourists who complained about it, but the Industry and Trade and Tourism ministries as well. Their offices vowed to get to the bottom of the story.
“We’ve opened an investigation in to the matter, and if it turns out that the restaurant broke the law, we will take action and recommend to the I&T ministry that they be fined,” said Rafael Ben Hur, deputy manager of tourist products in the Tourism Ministry.
Not even contrite, the restaurant’s owner said “they work hard,” and that “tourists actually like to come here.”
Soaring plane tickets
Despite Israel’s desperate longing for the return of tourists to its shores, it turns out that “Topsy” was just the tip of the iceberg for this phenomenon. Many businesses have managed to alienate tourists to the point where they don’t want to return here again.
Since the story, complaints have been streaming in to Yedioth Ahronoth from many French tourists who had decided to return to Israel after the intifada. Most of the French tourists speak Hebrew, or have Israeli family and friends here, and so they could complain to Yedioth. But there are plenty of foreigners who can’t complain.
The phenomenon first came to light with plane tickets prices from France to Israel. That issue has been in the news lately as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sided with French tourists against El Al in saying that flight tickets costs were exorbitant and unjustified.
El Al CEO Haim Romano said in response that “there are periods where prices are high, and periods when they are low. We’re doing our best to solve this problem.”
In the meantime, it looks like Sharon’s intervention hasn’t done much, and some tourists paid over 800 euros for a round trip ticket to Israel this summer. And incidentally, those prices are the same for tickets ordered in December.
Same rooms, different prices
Yossi Haioun is an Israeli who lives permanently in Paris, but visits Israel regularly. He recently told Yedioth Ahronoth that he reserved a room in an Eilat hotel for his young nephew who was coming to Israel from France.
The room was booked in the Royal Beach hotel by Eshet tours, and NIS 4,100 was paid up front by credit card. When the young man arrived at the hotel he was asked to produce his Israeli ID card and all he had on him was a French driver’s license.
“You’re a tourist?” they asked him at the reception desk, “then you have to add on another NIS 2,000.”
Because he was already there, he had to call his parents and have them approve the astronomical sum. Result: more angry French tourists who are not sure they want to come back to Israel again.
Isrotel’s response?
“In the tourism industry in general, and hotels in particular, prices for rooms change on a daily basis, depending on availability, season, holidays, etc. This is an acceptable norm in every tourist spot in the world, where price lists are structured upon availability and demand. In any case, prices do not go above the set prices of the hotel price list.”
The Ministry of Tourism and the Israeli Hotel Association say that these are private businesses and that they cannot supervise their prices. Apparently these offices have already forgotten how much they missed tourists, and so it’s a shame they don’t do their utmost to protect them.
“Imagine an Israeli coming to a hotel in Paris and paying more than a Frenchman who comes from Normandy. Immediately everyone would cry ‘anti-Semitism’ and set your foreign ministry upon them,” says Haioun.
Separate lines
The price of entry to a dance club also varies depending upon where you’re from. Two young tourists contacted us with a similar complaint. One went to a party at the Dome club, the other went to Haoman 17 in Tel Aviv.
“We had to pay NIS 150 to get in to the Dome, while Israelis were asked to pay NIS 100,” the young Frenchman told us.
“At the entrance to Haoman 17, we were lined up in two queues, one for Israelis who paid NIS 60 to get in, and the other for French people, who had to pay NIS 120 to get in. Anyone who tried to go over to the other line was thrown out,” the other Frenchman told us.
Unbelievable? The Dome club responded by saying they were not responsible for the prices, because the club was rented out for a private party, and the organizers determined the prices.
Haoman 17’s owners said that the two lines were meant to make it easier for the French tourists so they wouldn’t have to wait on a long line, and that there are “discounts for Israelis who are club members.”
Convincing? Not really. If the club owners would just look at it through the tourists eyes, they might see things a bit differently.
'The meter’s broken'
“How can it be that when a tourist enters a taxi, the meter is always broken?” asks one tourist. “Why do they always determine a price at the start of the journey and then it turns out that they were suckers and paid more than Israelis?” asks another.
“On Saturday night, I organized a party for French tourists at the restaurant Blue on the Tel Baruch beach,” says Yossi Balachsan, a public relations manager for restaurants and clubs that organizes parties for tourists in Tel Aviv. “Most of the taxis that were sent to the hotels in Tel Aviv to pick up the tourists and bring them to Tel Baruch charged NIS 50-60 for a trip that doesn’t cost more than NIS 30-35. Every time I think about it I get annoyed again.”
It’s worth telling your overseas guests: It is mandatory for taxis to turn on the meter for every trip. On intercity trips alone you can choose between set prices from the Transportation Ministry price list, or the meter. And more importantly, you can complain to the ministry if drivers are not following the law.
It’s true it’s not that easy, particularly because you have to write a letter - and what tourist is going to sit down and write a letter? But at least there’s an address to complain to.
Addresses for taxi complaints:
- Transportation Supervisor for Jerusalem and the south, 5 Bank of Israel Street, Jerusalem
- Transportation Supervisor for the Central Region: 8 Melacha Street, Tel Aviv
- Transportation Supervisor for Haifa and the North: 15a Pell Yam Boulevard, building B, Government Square, Haifa
