From his office in Jerusalem, Uri Taub is "dealing with half of humanity," as he describes it in a conversation with Al-Monitor. As director of the Asia and Pacific Marketing Desk at the Tourism Office Marketing Administration, he is in charge of Asia and countries where there is no Israeli diplomatic representation. He's responsible for marketing Israel to countries such as India (1.25 billion potential clients) or China (1.36 billion potential clients).

China is considered the holy grail of international tourism. The middle class there is flourishing, and as it gets financially stronger, it adopts Western tourism habits. “The number of Chinese tourists worldwide has grown from just a few million individuals to about 120 million in 2015,” said Taub. Obviously, Israel wants a slice of that pie. It has been trying for years to increase the number of Chinese tourists visiting the country. Current Tourism Minister Yariv Levin said back in 2015 that “almost nothing was done” about the issue in the years before he took office.

Taub is no longer alone. After considerable efforts, Israel sent its first tourism attache to China this year. Taub said, “What is needed there is the presence of a professional, a person with status who gives off an air of dignity. It is not yet at the same level that it is in North America, but it is a beginning.” He claimed that the appointment of the attache was just part of the many efforts that Israel is investing in the Chinese market, in addition to encouraging tour guides to learn Chinese, encouraging hotels to offer Chinese breakfasts and posting Chinese signage in central locations. Israel is also busy removing obstacles to Chinese tourism by granting visas for 10 years instead of just a few months. There are now direct flights from Beijing to Tel Aviv by China's Hainan Airlines. Taub believes that granting an automatic visa would also help.

Taub says that as part of the efforts to recoup the damages from 2014’s Operation Protective Edge, the Ministry of Tourism's general marketing budget increased by more than 100 million shekels ($25.9 million), and now stands at 300 million shekels ($77.7 million). Of that sum, 15 million shekels ($3.8 million) are devoted to the Chinese market, a leap up from years at 1-2 million shekels ($259,000-518,000). Taub does the calculations. “Chinese tourism accounts for 1.5% percent of all tourism to Israel, but it [now] gets 5% of the budget.”