ISRAEL: Haifa Incoming

“It’s no secret that overnights by incoming guests were down in hotels all over Israel last year, by about 11 percent,” states Adi Maor, general manager of the Dan Hotels Corporation in the North (the Dan Carmel, Dan Panorama and Dan Gardens Haifa and the Dan Caesarea, which recently came under his aegis), a member of the board of directors of the Haifa Tourism Board and chairman of the Northern Hotel Association, of which nearly all the local associations in that part of Israel have joined. “Nevertheless, the drop in Haifa was smaller, down just two percent, and this trend has remained steady through the end of the year, even with the opening of new hotels. For example, the country-wide decrease in occupancy in November was eight percent, compared with just a one-percent drop in Haifa.”

As Maor sees it, one of the primary reasons Haifa’s hotels are more than holding their own, is the effort they and the city have been investing in marketing Haifa as the “Hub of the North,” based on a message that in essence says: “Come to Israel - and to Haifa for a three-day extension.”
“The developments of the local roads system has totally changed the way we can brand, position and market the city,” he explains.

“It started with the Carmel Tunnels project, which was inaugurated four years ago, and the situation just keeps getting better. For example, a new bypass road makes the trip from Haifa to Acre take little more than 15 minutes, while new roads to Nazareth make it just 25 minutes away, and it’s only a 45-minute drive to Tiberias.

We have been levering this message as the basis for promoting stay-puts in the city, and we have developed packages that include a day in Nazareth or Tiberias, as well as options like the local Druze villages, Megiddo or Zichron Yaacov, each culminating with an evening in Haifa’s German Colony and it developing nightlife scene.”

Haifa Waterfront Project
Maor also mentions that future developments in the city will increase Haifa’s accessibility and bolster its appeal. A number of new hotels are scheduled to open in the next few years, including a 250-room property in Haifa’s future “Waterfront” project, a lifestyle and nightlife compound on part of Haifa Port that has been cleared for this purpose. The first stage of the Waterfront is scheduled to be inaugurated in 2017, as part of a process that is expected to take five years to complete. “There’s a good basis for optimism in the North, and in Haifa in particular,” Maor concludes.

Dan News in the North
After the hotel was totally renovated a few years ago, the Dan Carmel, Haifa turned its attention last year to its outdoor swimming pool - heated to 29°C and open throughout the year - which was totally rebuilt. “It was a copy/paste of the pool at the King David, Jerusalem with its mosaic floor,” Maor says. “Plans for this year call for renovating the hotel dining room, as well as the Rondo events hall.

In addition, the Dan Carmel plans to open the Palachi Pub, its lobby-level bar, in February, as a European/Italian a la carte restaurant.

Improvements are also on tap for the Dan Panorama Haifa, where the hotel’s 266 rooms are to be renovated, corridors included, one floor at least at a time, depending on occupancy, in the course of 2016.

Dan Caesarea Renovations
In what Maor terms “our largest project ever,” the Dan Hotels Corporation will be closing the Dan Caesarea this coming 25 October for a five-month period, to totally renovate and modernize the property. “Not very much has been done there since the hotel first opened, in the 1960s,” he adds.

As part of this effort, all the rooms in the hotel will be demolished and the property will be redesigned as what Maor describes as “a trendy, stylish deluxe-level resort.” Plans call for it to reopen in March 2017 with its current complement of 122 rooms, reinforced by a large PR campaign.

“The next stage is for new rooms and a spa, but that will be some future date,” Maor admits.