Why They Come to Tel Aviv? Boutique Hotels & Designer Shops

Tel Aviv beaches, nice weather year around, boutique hotels, gourmet restaurants... the hidden secrets of the city get lost among overwhelming media coverage of the Palestinian security stories. / © 2010

A cousin of mine in Boston once said that Tel Aviv does not have any upscale boutique hotels. It is not a cosmopolitan destination like New York, Paris, London, Berlin or even Prague. She wants Tel Aviv to attract world class designers, investors and tourists. That is what makes a city a boutique tourist destination, both image and reality. She was riding that boutique life "wave" of the 1990s and 2000s. When the Internet was fresh and the housing boom was driving construction of small hotels in the US and Europe. Boutiques were the next thing in America. Everybody wanted more than the just polished big brands. Hilton and Sheraton were for conventions and for the "old school" traveler. The cool young executives were creating a new style, boutique was in. Half of the driving force for the trend came from these new designers and retail entrepreneurs. The other half came from travel spending. This is a very American, even a New Yorker way of looking at things. But the good times in boutique hotels in New York, Boston and London did not last long. In Europe and Asia it has slowed down. In Tel Aviv it is still going, slowly, but still going.

A French hotelier with a small boutique hotel in Tel Aviv once told me that the only hotels worth building in Tel Aviv were boutiques. Small, good service, unique design. Tel Aviv was not a city of large tourist crowds. He came from Paris and Niece hotel experience. To him Tel Aviv was a model of a French beach resort. Just there was a city tacked on to it. (Editor: there is something to this notion, Tel Avivians say about the city and the beach that the city has "it's back to the sea" - meaning the sea is not an integral part of city life.) This Frenchman didn't care about the business world here. He didn't even care about the culture life. He was bringing French tourists to Tel Aviv instead of the French, Spanish or Italian coast. For his tourists Tel Aviv just needed more boutique everything. He wanted more boutique shops, European gourmet restaurants (he could not understand how American called their cooking gourmet) and clubs with music from Jazz to Hip-Hop. Then the French, Italians, Germans and Swedish young spenders would be attracted.

Such different views, such a different images of the same place. But not such strange difference to explain. To these who know and travel, Tel Aviv is a "best kept secret". Bad news if you are Tel Aviv's mayor or the Israeli tourism minister. Good news to boutique hotel owners. After all, where can you get a "boutique city" within a modern city without much competition? Where can you be a few hours by plane from Europe with over 200 airlines to choose from? Where can you be in a city where you can speak English, French, Russian and a bit of the other European languages? Lots of things are unique in Tel Aviv (and Israel.) Because of the overwhelming press about the security problems with the Palestinians, most people completely miss the good parts of the city. I am surprised that some people actually benefit from this situation. Overall, the cost of vacationing here is probably lower than it should be. It is certainly cheaper to stay here than in most of the well known European resorts. Maybe Tel Aviv's mayor need to think of the city as a Mediterranean resort town, not a big metropolitan one. Maybe we need to compare ourselves to an Italian or Spanish resort town not to London or Berlin or Moscow. Than boutique hotel managers, boutique shop owners and gourmet restaurateurs could really design a city befitting American and European boutique tourism set. If not that, maybe just a little bit more style amongst all the other things Tel Aviv has to offer.

Finally there is the element of being here and proximity of Europe to Israel. French, German and British are simply geographically closer to Israel. They are also closer in terms of culture and business. To a French traveler vacationing in Tel Aviv or Eilat is similar to vacation in Cairo or west Africa. The same goes for a Russian or a Turk. Once you get over the image mainstream media portrays of Israel, there is the reality (or is it practicality) of travel. Americans know less about Israel than European. This may be a change from the past. Europeans are also more exposed to Israelis in business and tourism. Israelis travel to Europe as if they were traveling inside US between states or inside Europe. Even with the Internet and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, being in a place and seeing and feeling is crucial to understanding a place. This is something Americans miss more than they imagine. This change is a trend, although slow, has a force of it's own. Even Russians come in greater number than Americans in the winter months. Unlike Americans, the Russian press (and before that the Soviet one) has not been portraying the Israelis in a negative light. If you have an opinion or even better, an experience with this issue, please write to me directly or through comments.