Yeruham Tourism Reservation Center

The New Yeruham Fund

Ness Returning Application 2023 Application

Yeruham Tourism Reservation Center

The New Yeruham Fund Amram Mitzna hadekel 181 yeruham, israel 8051108

[email protected] O: 0546596339

Ilana Bril

hadekel 181 yeruham, israel 8051108

[email protected] B 0546596339

Project Details Project Name*

Name of Project Yeruham Tourism Reservation Center

Funding History*

Please list the past years, names of projects, and funding amounts that the Ness Fund has provided for this project. Ness Foundation’s support of 2020 was invested in branding and positioning tourism of Yeruham supporting the FIT tourism experience. In 2021 we went from investing in FIT tourism to organized tourism, establishing a Reservation Center that substantially increases tourism operations in Yeruham and creates a significant advantage for Yeruham as a tourist destination. The Reservation Center was established as an economic anchor for the Association in order to later lead it to financial independence

Project Description*

Summarize the primary focus of your original grant project and your successes to date. • Needs/problems and solutions associated with the project. • Major achievements/outcomes to date. • Challenges and how you are overcoming them. • Key partners such as municipal/regional council leaders, universities, other organizations,

government, etc. • Indicate what you ascribe your successes to: o an individual(s) and/or o partner organization(s) as collaborations o specific activities. The Reservation Center is a service that enables groups to conveniently, quickly plan their day in Yeruham in a manner that ensures quality and is tailored to the visitors! The service provided by the Reservation Center is unique and innovative in the region, granting Yeruham a significant advantage. In addition, the Reservation Center offers groups an experiential content product - an urban tasting tour. The Reservation Center is an impactful operation that dramatically impacts tourism in Yeruham: * Sustainability - Developing an economic anchor for the Association, which will later lead to financial independence and pave the way for the Association to further promote and develop tourism in Yeruham for many years to come. * Growth - Significantly increasing the number of visitors and the scope of economic tourist activities in Yeruham. Printed On: 14 January 2023

Ness Returning Application 2023

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Yeruham Tourism Reservation Center

The New Yeruham Fund

The Reservation Center was launched in March 2022. Up to November 2022, 63 groups visited Yeruham through the Reservation Center (1,926 visitors) and the Center’s business operations totaled ~500K NIS, of which over 60K NIS were reported as profit. The profit was derived of the agent commissions that we charge of the suppliers and of the sale of our content (the urban tour). The Reservation Center requires more time for development and establishment in order to realize its sustainability potential relating to tourism and the Tourism Association as a generating organization. 3 action tracks that we are presently focusing on: * Establishment - Continuing to operate and optimize the Reservation Center: Transitioning to a CRM system, onboarding additional operational personnel, developing customer satisfaction surveys and more. * Development - Developing services, content events and other products to meet additional customer needs and values, while generating additional revenues for the Reservation Center and promoting its businesseconomic stability. * Marketing - Thus far, all Reservation Center activities were conducted with hardly any marketing. Executing a marketing plan will enable us to significantly increase the scope of work and profits. In so doing, dozens of tourist business operators in Yeruham will enjoy greater work volume and revenues while establishing the Reservation Center as a profitable business venture. The Reservation Center was established and is operated by the Tourism Association, supported almost exclusively by Ness Foundation. Secondary partners include the local authority and the New Yeruham Fund.

Measures of Success- Quantitative and Qualitative*

List 4-5 key quantitative measures of success to date. For example: • # of people who will benefit and specific populations • # and types of events • # of new partners • # and types of changes made in the community as a result of the project • Changes in the organization, community, etc. Establishing the Reservation Center is a dramatic venture in the Yeruham tourism arena, enjoyed by many stakeholders: 1. Visitors - Nearly 2000 visitors to Yeruham thus far who have enjoyed a high quality service and hospitality experience. In addition to them, over 6,000 visitors visited Yeruham in 7 events produced by the Association. 2. Small businesses and Economic Development - Dozens of small tourism businesses in Yeruham increased their operations and revenues. Tourism in general is awakening and growing, inter alia thanks to the Reservation Center. Yeruham is enjoying diversification in terms of its visitors, products and services, offering a better starting point and more confidence toward establishing other small businesses. 3. Local organizations and Yeruham residents - Leading tourism in a broad perspective leads to the establishment of collaborations with local organizations relating to young adults, sustainability and culture, improving and increasing endeavors in those areas. Thus, for example, events that could not be held due to a limited number of local participants, are now adapted and opened to external audiences, enabling their execution

Challenges*

Provide details of challenges your organization is encountering in the implementation of this program and if there are any associated changes in your original objectives, staffing, project plans, or timelines.

Please be honest and transparent with your answers to this question.

We are coping with 3 main challenges in operating the Reservation Center: 1. Cash flow - The Reservation Center is operated by the Tourism Association - a young, small and thin organization. The large leap in accounting operations created cash flow bottlenecks (the difference between customer revenues and supplier expenses) where we were required to delay payments to suppliers. The fact that Yeruham’s tourism business are also major players in establishing the Center, understanding its importance, creates “tolerance” as related to payments.

Printed On: 14 January 2023

Ness Returning Application 2023

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Yeruham Tourism Reservation Center

The New Yeruham Fund

2. Investment - The Reservation Center is a social-tourism business that requires further investment and support until it will be able to operate with financial independence. As stated, the young Tourism Association does not have assets and capital for supporting its business venture. Investing in the venture for another year will enable us to continue developing more services and products that will increase its work volume and thus render it a profitable business. 3. Development - The Reservation Center needs additional products and services for 2 main reasons: First, to generate more revenues and achieve financial stability; Second - to create supplementary content and experiential products for groups visiting Yeruham. Working in tight conditions (in terms of time, money and personnel resources) does not enable it to progress rapidly toward achieving its objectives.

New Project Summary* Summarize the need and overall intended impact of new grant. Describe • Changes in strategies and activities from the prior year • Why the funding needed now • Partner organizations and funders • How the project will improve the Negev and its residents. The Reservation Center is a project of strategic impact for the Association’s financial sustainability and for realizing Yeruham’s tourism potential. Therefore, in the upcoming year, we will be required to further develop: 1. Development - We will develop additional products, services and events that will increase its operating scopes and offer a complementary value for the tourism experience in Yeruham. The Association is taking its first steps in training residents to conduct home hosting activities and we intend to create a new project (“Hosting Homes”) that will serve as a business platform for all residents interested in the activity. The project will enable many residents generate additional revenues and will significantly enrich the tourism experience that we can offer our customers. 2. Marketing - Thus far Reservation Center activities are conducted without marketing activities. Next year, we will act to execute a marketing plan, including: Content packages for the organized market, Establishing a sales website, campaigns and digital promotion, Conferences and exposure tours (agents, journalists, bloggers). 3. Optimizing and establishing Reservation Center work methods - The Reservation Center was established with no model that can be applied. Leading the center requires learning, development and process improvement, alongside its ongoing operations. It must be brought to efficient and quality operations. The current workloads (and surely the forecasted ones) already call for a CRM system that will greatly simplify and improve efforts with customers and suppliers, compile data and organize daily tasks.Further more, In order to improve and develop, we need feedback and information on all matters relating to customer satisfaction (with the overall tourism experience and the service experience with the Center itself). An additional investment will enable us to develop such a survey and integrate it within our work with groups.

Amount Requested*

Amount Requested for 2022-2023 $103,000.00

Project Budget*

What is the total project budget? $154,711.00

Project Start Date* 07/01/2023

Project End Date* 06/30/2024

Population* Printed On: 14 January 2023

Ness Returning Application 2023

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Yeruham Tourism Reservation Center

The New Yeruham Fund

Indicate the specific population or organization that will be impacted during this grant period, including numbers and demographics. Are there any changes from the original project? Developing the economic-tourism field: Yeruham tour operators and tourism supporting businesses - Dozens of tourism and tourism supporting businesses enjoy increased work scopes and revenues due to groups visiting through the Reservation Center. Dozens of Yeruham residents with the opportunity to generate additional tourism revenues in a safer manner with close Association support. Local enrichment - Thousands of Yeruham residents who enjoy larger and more elaborate events and products thanks to cooperation with the Tourism Association and adapting events to external audiences. Yeruham visitors - Thousands of visitors to Yeruham every year will enjoy higher quality and more comfortable accommodations.

Goals, Tasks and Timeline*

List three intended goals with outcomes to be pursued during the year (in order of importance) With each goal/outcome, describe how your intended impact will be achieved, by specific strategies and activities that you will implement. With each goal/outcome, provide 4-5 measures of success that you will be measuring during the course of the grant, Please use a table or spreadsheet, or distinct bullet points. Ex. • quantitative measures: # of people, # of sessions, # of new initiatives,# new partners) • qualitative: changes in processes, changes in attitudes, skills, cultural enrichment) • organizational: growth goals, stronger leadership/vision and/or changing focus on communities, significant growth in partnerships Goals, Tasks and Timeline.pdf Attached file detailing the objectives of Reservation Center, key actions, schedules, and KPI for 2023-2024

Program Evaluation*

What internal review process(es) have you used in evaluating your current effort? What efforts are you planning to use for the future stage of this program? Who is in charge of this? What are your tools and methods, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, follow-up questionnaires, communal feedback, interim discussions with staff, interim reports based on each phase or stage of the project? Please be specific and realistic. Until today, the Reservation Center has been compiling data on lead sources, quality (did they develop into a deal), number of visitors, visitor deployment in various businesses and monetary operations (revenues and profits). A CRM system that will be integrated in the upcoming year will help us compile more data and conclude operative deductions for the future. There is currently no structured and organized control and evaluation process. Following are the auditing channels that must be organizationally established: Organizational - The Reservation Center must update its business plan to measure meeting business objectives and leading to economic independence. Customers - In the upcoming year, we will devise a digital customer satisfaction survey to examine their experience in Yeruham and assess their service experience with the Reservation Center. Until then, we conduct summary discussions with every customer and tourism operators in order to compile free feedback. Suppliers (tourism operators) - The Reservation Center was established at the request of the tourism operators and is operated by the Tourism Association. Therefore, we ensure open and ongoing dialogue between the tourism operators and the Reservation Center. The dialogue is conducted freely in conversation as needed and in a dedicated meeting convened once every four months, where the Reservation Center presents its activities and achievements and conducts discussions on various issues concerning the parties

Organization information Organization Information*

Printed On: 14 January 2023

Ness Returning Application 2023

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Yeruham Tourism Reservation Center

The New Yeruham Fund

What is the overall Amuta budget for the year? How many employees? $217,285.00

Organizational Changes*

What organizational changes have occurred since you began your project? (e.g. mission, staff, board members, communities served, budget, partners, etc.) How is this impacting your project? Please list and describe these changes. The Tourism Association underwent several significant changes following activation of the Reservation Center: 1. Executive committee replaced - The Tourism Association was established by residents with tourism businesses who sought to promote and develop tourism in Yeruham. The Association executive committee consisted entirely of local tourism operators. As the Reservation Center was established and with the introduction of business operations for the Association, the executive committee was required to resign (in order for us to acquire services from them for groups and to avoid conflict of interest). A new temporary executive committee was appointed to the Association. 2. Administrative - The Associations monetary activities increased by hundreds of percentages following the establishment of the Reservation Center. This increases our bookkeeping expenses and will later require us to hire a dedicated bookkeeper. 3. Fundraising - The Association made a strategic decision to invest minor efforts and raising philanthropic and government aid, and to establish a business that can serve as an economic anchor for the Association. 4. Focus and convergence - As the Tourism Association is a young and thin organization, the Reservation Center took up most of its resources and energy. The Association did not set aside its broad tourism objectives, but we in a year (expected to go on to another year) of focusing our efforts on establishing the Reservation Center.

Budget Budget Report to date*

Please complete a budget report. Indicate by column, approved and actual expenses to date, in XL format, for the current funded project. Upload it here. You may use a https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WQEcRvIyHHGVBlTZ0CQvS7ZtxMx1RjWPLI2zTeJRWiw/edit?usp=shari ngsample form. See attached forms Ness-Foundation-Budget.xlsx

Proposed Project Budget*

Please upload a proposed budget, as an XL spreadsheet for the proposed project. Justify your expenses below. Please indicate if there are other funders and if their commitment is pending or confirmed. You may use the sample budget. Budget 2023-24.xlsx Budget attached

Additional Funding Indicate additional funding partners including government funding, by source for this project during this grant period. Indicate whether it is pending or confirmed. The Yeruham Local Council (through the Yeruham Economic Company) transfers a budget for the activity every year. as of last year, the budget totaled 50K NIS. We believe that the budget will be no less in 2023.

Sustainability Future Sustainability* Printed On: 14 January 2023

Ness Returning Application 2023

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Yeruham Tourism Reservation Center

The New Yeruham Fund

How does your organization plan to support this project once Ness funding ends? What efforts have you made so far and what is planned? Establishing the Reservation Center is of dramatic value toward promoting the tourism businesses in Yeruham, but also for the Tourism Association’s organizational sustainability. The Association has reached a strategic decision to establish a business-social activity that will serve as an economic anchor for the association and perhaps even lead it to financial independence with less reliance on philanthropic and government funds. The decision is based, inter alia, on a review of tourism fundraising efforts. The review demonstrated that tourism is not a field that the government and philanthropic entities tend to support due to its business nature. We therefore decided to open a business of economic value to the Association and of economic development to Yeruham and tourism at large. The Reservation Center’s further development and establishment will correspond with that spirit establishing services and products that support tourism in Yeruham and establish the Reservation Center’s and Association’s economic sustainability. In addition, we intend to launch a crowdfunding campaign in 2023, which will help us support the Association and have marketing value for all tourism activities in Yeruham (we will enable people to experience a tourism experience at a high price, thus enjoy the experience and support the tourism businesses).

File Attachment Summary Applicant File Uploads

• Goals, Tasks and Timeline.pdf • Ness-Foundation-Budget.xlsx • Budget 2023-24.xlsx

Supporting Documents

No files were uploaded

Printed On: 14 January 2023

Ness Returning Application 2023

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Reservation Center Objectives - 2023-2024

Objective 1: Doubling self-revenues (profit) to ~150K NIS in the second year of operation and striving toward financial independence.

Main actions toward achieving the objectives//Schedule: 

Executing a marketing plan including a sales website, campaign and digital promotion // ongoing throughout the year.



Developing content packages for the organized market (added-value experience) and marketing them directly to specific target audiences // Package development until July 2023, market launch as of August 2023.



Developing the “Hosting Homes” project and selling it as a new Reservation Center product (alongside the urban tour) // Described in Objective 3.

KPIs: 

Meeting at least 90% of the self-revenue objective.



Diversifying revenue streams: Agent commissions, urban tour, “Hosting Homes” project, content packages, events, crowdfunding campaign.

Objective 2: Doubling the number of visitors to Yeruham through the Reservation Center to ~5,000 visitors per year and another ~10K in highlight events produced by the Association.

Main actions toward achieving the objectives//Schedule: 

Executing a marketing plan including a sales website, campaign and digital promotion // ongoing throughout the year.



Developing content packages for the organized market (added-value experience) and marketing them directly to specific target audiences // Package development until July 2023, market launch as of August 2023.



Producing and executing 10 content events attracting ~10K visitors to Yeruham // 10 events as follows: High Tech and the Desert - October 2023

and April 2024l “Barashi” (street festival) - August 2023 and March 2024l Starry Night - August 2023l Bioblitz - May 2024, Yeruham Irus Festival March 2024; Yoga Retreat - July 2023; Free Friday Tours - Ongoing throughout the year; “Acoustic Thursday” (musical performances at businesses) - Ongoing throughout the year.

KPIs: 

Meeting 90% of the objective for groups visiting Yeruham for experiential days through the Reservation Center.



Meeting 90% of the objective for visitors to highlight events produced by the Association.

Objective 3: Establishing the “Hosting Homes” project enabling at least 5 Yeruham residents to enjoy additional revenues.

Main actions toward achieving the objectives//Schedule: 

Completing training for at least 10 Yeruham residents who wish to develop/integrate with a business offering groups with home hospitality //Completing training including hands on operation - By September 2023 (Succoth)



Establishing the business: Branding, financial model, work method and marketing plan // By November 2023.



Running the business (Pilot): Operating the business with close accompaniment and process improvement // Pilot - December 2023 (Hanukkah) to January 2024, Complete and ongoing operation - February 2024

KPIs: 

At least 5 hosting homes that welcomed at least 10 groups during the first year of operation.



Diversifying content offerings at the hosting homes: Culinary experience, personal-local story, workshops and more.

Objective 4: Optimizing and streamlining Reservation Center operations

Main actions toward achieving the objectives//Schedule: 

Optimizing a CRM system and fully transitioning the Reservation Center to working on a CRM system // By December 2023



Onboarding operational personnel to perform most of the known ongoing tasks, freeing the current personnel to further managing, selling and developing the Reservation Center // New employee onboarding - July 2023



Developing and integrating customer satisfaction surveys and devising a new index for improving the tourism experience and Reservation Center service experience // Survey development - By August 2023, Use and integration - As of September 2023.

KPIs: 

All Reservation Center interfaces with suppliers and customers are conducted through a CRM system.



Enlarging the staff by an additional employee.



At least 70% of the feedback from all groups visiting Yeruham through the Reservation Center.

Reservation Center Actual Expe Personal Management and development Operations Administrative Bookkeeping Insurance Marketing and PR Agent and journalist exposure tours Digital management Website Campaigns CRM System

Yeruham Tourism Association Reservation and Information Center Budg

enses (7-12/22) Expense Forecast (1-6/23) 21060 49140 30000 60000 2300 15065 12925 15000 12,500 12500 15,000 8541 10000 15,000 115,091 163,940 279,031

iation Reservation and Information Center Budget

Paid by Ness Foundation 21060 30000 2300 7500 7500

Funding Source Ness Foundation Ness Foundation Ness Foundation Ness Foundation + Self revenue Ness Foundation + Self revenue Ministry for the Development of the Negev a Ministry for the Development of the Negev a 8541 Ness Foundation Ministry for the Development of the Negev a 76,901

and Galilee (through the Economic Company) and Galilee (through the Economic Company)

and Galilee (through the Economic Company)

Yeruham Tourism Reservation Center 2023-2024 Line

Line

Revenue

Total for Project

Ness Foundation

$103,000.00

Yeruham Economic Company

$14,285.71

Crowdfunding Campaign

$57,142.86

Self-Revenues

$42,857.14

Total Revenue for Project

$217,285.71

Expenses

Total for Project

50% Reservation Center management position 50% Reservation Center development and sales position

$24,000.00

100% Reservation Center operations position Professional services -Bookkeeping, insurance, legal counsel, business consulting Reservation Center marketing - Campaigns, website maintenance, promotion and digital management Marketing content packages to organized markets Salesperson Exposure events - Influencer and journalist tours, professional conferences (HR, employee unions, etc.) Content event production - Production professional, marketing Establishing the “Hosting Home” project - Project coordinator, branding and marketing, constructing a dedicated website

$34,285.00

$34,285.00

$8,571.00 $17,714.00 $ 10,286.00 $10,000.00 $12,857.00

$ 16,571.00

Developing digital feedback

$5,142.00

Miscellaneous and out of pocket

$5,000.00

Total Expenses

$154,711.00

-2024 Committed (C) or Prospective (P)

(P) (C) (P) (P)

NESS Grant Request

Other Grant/Inkind $24,000.00

$34,285.00 $34,285.00 $8,571.00 $17,714.00 $10,286.00 $10,000.00 $12,857.00

$ 16,571.00 $5,142.00 $5,000.00 $102,855.00

$51,856.00