Take a Virtual Vacation
SOPHIE PANZER | JE STAFF
Micaela Pavoncello leads a tour
in Rome before the pandemic.

Courtesy of Micaela Pavoncello
T HAKINMHAN / iStock / Getty Images Plus
he coronavirus pandemic has given rise to a new form of
international travel that allows tourists to skip the lines
and the jet lag.

Armed with computers rather than fanny packs, intrepid
souls hire local guides and journey to faraway places from the
comfort of their living rooms.

Th is is virtual tourism — and it may be here to stay.

Participants pay experts to educate them through videos and
slideshows of destinations that are temporarily out of reach. Th ey
are not intended to replace travel, but to provide entertainment
and social connection while people are stuck in their home
countries. For those who miss visiting Israel, Jewish National Fund-USA
launched JNF Virtual Travel & Tours, which are virtual missions
complete with Zoom buses and cocktail hours.

“A few weeks ago, my wife Lauren mentioned to me the JNF
partners love to get together for missions to Israel, and with
COVID-19 we miss that,” Jewish National Fund-USA President
Sol Lizerbram said. “She said, ‘What if we have a virtual mission
to Israel? We’ll all get on a virtual bus, we’ll hire a professional
tour guide and for a week we’ll go on a tour of Israel.’”
Th e missions are led by a guide in Israel and at least one
JNF-USA staff member who is local to the “departing” region.

Each Zoom bus can hold 22 households sharing a computer
screen. Tours begin at 4 p.m. in participants’ local time zone and
run for an hour, during which they visit three sites. Th e guide
presents images, videos, stories and cultural insight while
answering questions from the audience. At 5 p.m., people take
a break to get ready for dinner or cocktails with their fellow
travelers. At 6 p.m., everyone reconvenes to schmooze on Zoom.

A $50 registration fee covers fi ve days of tours, beginning on
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Monday and culminating in a Shabbat gathering on Friday.

“It’s not the same as being there, obviously, but it is fun to go
on the tour and to have dinner or appetizers together,” Lizerbram
said. JNF-USA is also assisting Israeli artisans and small businesses
hurting from the lack of tourism. Participants looking for a
souvenir from their virtual travels can buy wine, cheese, jewelry
and art from JNF-USA’s online Mitzvah Marketplace and have it
shipped to their homes.

According to Lizerbram, the trips are a hit and attracted a
variety of audiences. Some have been to Israel as many as 30
times. Others have never visited. Many had trips scheduled this
year that were canceled or now seem uncertain.

“Now synagogues are requesting buses, Jewish day schools are
requesting buses, Jewish camps are requesting buses; it’s sort of
become quite a phenomenon,” he said.

Samantha van Adelsberg, JNF-USA’s Eastern Pennsylvania
director, said the organization has already hosted 14 virtual trips
to Israel and signed up more than 800 participants across the
country. “Th e good problem on our end is we have so many tours and
so many regions interested in sending Zoom buses to Israel we
almost don’t have enough responses,” she said.

JNF-USA does not take any of the money raised by the virtual
missions. “Funds go directly to the guides who have been out for work
for almost three months,” van Adelsberg said.

For tour guide Yocheved Kolchin, the program has been a way
to earn steady part-time income. She got her tour guide license
at the end of January, just weeks before Israel’s tourism industry
shut down.

“A lot of people are out of work right now, and we don’t get
THIS SUMMER
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compensated,” she said. “For example, I had Birthright trips I
was supposed to guide this summer, and I don’t get compensa-
tion from the government for those. If you’re an independent
freelancer you can get a grant from the government based on
your income from 2018, but I wasn’t an independent freelancer
in 2018. Th is just sounded like a great opportunity.”
Her virtual tours start on an El Al plane, sans crying babies
and airsickness. She takes her visitors to classic sites like the Old
City in Jerusalem, even a boat ride on the Dead Sea. She has also
introduced viewers to lesser-known places.

“One of the benefi ts of doing virtual tours is we get to visit
places people wouldn’t put on an itinerary,” she said. She has
shown audiences Timnah, an ancient site four hours from
Jerusalem that is usually too hot for visitors during the summer,
and Rosh HaNikra, a seafront with white cliff s and hidden
grottoes on Israel’s border with Lebanon.

She said the tours have been a success.

“Th e world is changing so much lately, and it’s really inspiring
to see how people are meeting the challenges. People are still
committed to visiting Israel,” she said.

Israel is not the only destination available for virtual tourism.

Guides, travel companies and cultural sites are off ering similar
experiences in European and Asian countries.

Philadelphia-based tour agency Th e Tour Guy started
planning virtual tours aft er Italy, one of its main destinations,
sent international travelers home due to the coronavirus in
early March.

“We saw this as an opportunity to innovate,” Director of
Finance and Administration Josh Raab said.

Th e tours are held on the online webinar platform BigMarker
and are accessible through the company’s website. Tourists can
learn about gladiators in ancient Rome, Carnival in Venice and
Napoleon’s reign in Paris from local guides, with prices ranging
from $14 to $22. Cooking classes with local chefs are also
available. Participants can interact with guides and instructors
by typing questions in a chat box.

“Th e diff erence between us and a 15-minute video is (our
tours) are interactive. Our presenters can stop what they’re doing
to answer questions from the audience,” Raab said.

Tours of the Colosseum, the Vatican, the Paris Catacombs
and the Louvre museum are usually the most popular, but the
low overhead cost of virtual tours has allowed the company to
branch out.

“We are able to give tours where we normally would not have
a presence,” Raab said. “We give a tour in Egypt and a cooking
course with a chef in Bhutan. We’re expanding from our core of
Italy, France and Spain, and now we’re in Ireland, India, Egypt,
and we’re planning to start in Israel soon.”
Jewish Heritage Europe, a website featuring news and
information concerning Jewish monuments and cultural sites
in Europe, has curated virtual tours and exhibits from various
sources. Th e site, a project of the Rothschild Foundation, is run by
Ruth Ellen Gruber, author of “Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to
Eastern Europe.” Originally from Philadelphia, she now lives in
Europe and has spent the coronavirus lockdown in Italy.

“Museums and other operations have been creating virtual
tours and digital recreations and online exhibits for a long time.

Since no one can travel, there’s been an explosion of digital
experiences of all sorts,” Gruber said. “JHE is an online opera-
tion, so I just wanted to bring more useful and expansive content
to people who were stuck at home. People want to be entertained,
to see beautiful things.”
She started in early March with a series of virtual tours of 11
European towns that included digital recreations of buildings
where people could learn local history. Aft er getting a positive
response from visitors, she continued to post more virtual
experiences in Italy, Hungary, Spain, Germany, the Czech
American tourists take a virtual tour of Rome led by guide Micaela Pavoncello.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM THIS SUMMER
See Virtual, Page 8
Courtesy of Micaela Pavoncello
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