This covers cargoes and the emerging tourism and cruise sector and expresses the strategic direction toward which the Port is headed. The Haifa Port Company launched an innovative website (www.haifaport.co.il) expressing the Company’s strategy for the coming years. This consists of excellence in service, transparency toward the customers and the public, innovation, addressing customers in the Arab countries neighboring Israel such as Jordan, and the strengthening of sectors like general cargo and tourism, including the cruises and tourism sectors with the preparations for the opening of the Port to the general public as part of the municipal Waterfront Plan. The State of Israel has in recent years been making a considerable effort, led by the Ministry of Transport to position Haifa Port at the forefront of the logistical chain in the Middle East. This includes completion of the “Valley Railway” project from the Port of Haifa to the Jordanian border, and far-reaching plans to connect to other countries as well. Haifa Port is now moving this project one step forward by directly addressing, in Arabic, its potential customers across the border and presenting its capabilities, plus real-time data, to the potential overseas customers, as well as to the Arabic-speaking Israeli citizens.
Eshel Armony, Chairman of the Haifa Port Company Board of Directors: “The new Internet website expresses the Company’s strategy for the coming years. The fact that the site provides full service in Arabic dovetails perfectly with our intention to open eastward transport channels and to increase our cooperation with the moving of goods throughout the Middle East”. Mendy Zaltzman, CEO of the Haifa Port Company: “The new website is an image of Haifa Port itself – high-quality, professional, service-oriented with a beauty and spirit unique to it. This is a substantial step upwards, positioning us in this field too, the online data field on the Web, at the highest level globally. In three words – Beware, it’s addictive”. Zohar Rom, Port Spokesman and Manager of Communications and the Cruise Sector: “One can confidently say that this is one of the world’s ten most advanced Port websites and also one of the most attractive. We have learned a lot from technologically leading ports like the Ports of Rotterdam and Hamburg, particularly in all matters concerning development of real-time technological tools. We now bring to our customers and to the general public a sleek website which is fun to browse and efficient to use – whether on a computer or on a mobile phone. The fact that the Port is fully localised for English and Arabic is an important message to the Port’s customers in Israel and in our neighboring countries. It is a clear, unmistakable statement that the Port is determined to become the main gateway into the Middle East”.
The Haifa Port website actually consists of a fully developed website in three languages – Hebrew, Arabic and English, where all the information is updated in all three languages. Besides all this, there are detailed informational pages in ten other languages.