Mitzpe Ramon, southern Israel – April 21 2018
1. Wide of Ramon crater
2. Wide of cliffs overlooking crater
3. Close of ibex
Ramon Crater, southern Israel – April 21 2018
4. Wide of tent put up in the Ramon crater
5. Wide of Itay Kadish Katz fixing bed sheets inside the tent
6. Wide of bed
7. Close of towel and soap
8. Pan left from entrance of tent to table
Ramon Crater, southern Israel – April 22 2018
9. Various of Charline Wolff and Kassandra Thones, winners of Israeli Tourism Ministry promotional competition, arriving at tent
10. Various of Wolff and Thones reacting on arrival
UPSOUND (English) Omer Seltzer, Happy Glamper company: "Beds. We have towels and soaps from us. I will show you the toilet for a second, just so that we're clear about everything."
11. Mid of Omer Seltzer wrapping desert scarf around head of tourist
UPSOUND (English) Omer Seltzer, Happy Glamper company: "It's the desert scarf and you have to put it on now it's part of everything."
12. Various, Charline Wolff, German tourist, with desert scarf wrapped around her head
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Charline Wolff, winner of trip to Israel:
"I feel like a little princess. Yes, we talked about what the tent might be because we had no clue and we were somewhere in between a little tee-pee and like in Harry Potter with this big tent. And yeah it's amazing and beautiful and I think we will have a very good time over here, all this decoration."
14. Mid of German tourists inside tent
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Kassandra Thones, winner of trip to Israel:
"Feels exciting because I've never done this before and I think it will be a lifetime experience to sleep under the stars and with no one around."
16. Wide of tourists exiting tent
17. Mid of tourist with Omer
Ramon Crater, southern Israel – April 21 2018
18. Pan left from sunset to tent
19. SOUNDBITE (English), Omer Seltzer, Logistics manager, Happy Glamper company:
"What we have here it's on wheels. So, it comes to anywhere in the desert. We have solar panels on the top that gives us clean energy for the whole camp. All the lights are from these small solar panels. We have flowing water. We have 250 litres in the bottom, of water, so we can have water for all the night. We have a full kitchen with all you need to do to make any type of meal. We have a working fridge. We have a USB panel to charge your phone, we have wine, we have everything you need to do a perfect supper in the evening in the desert."
20. Various of food brought into tent
21. SOUNDBITE (English) Itay Kadish Katz, Manager of Happy Glamper company:
"This tent is a unique project because it's a pop-up. It's here for 14 days. Each night we host a couple from a different place in the world and we have really nice visitors here already. Each night the guests are coming something around sunset, they enjoy beers and then they have an amazing meal that we cook on a fire. Later on they have a bonfire, we brought stargazing activities and a professional telescope. Then they have time to enjoy the tent and the facility and the luxurious design here."
++NIGHTSHOTS++
22. Close of fire and tent
Ramon Crater, southern Israel – April 22 2018
++TIME LAPSE++
23. Wide of sunrise
Ramon Crater, southern Israel – April 22 2018
24. Various of jeep
25. Interior Felix Kiel and Anastasia Andric, tourists from Germany
26. Wide of the two tourists
27. SOUNDBITE (English) Felix Kiel, tourist from Germany:
"I think it's instead of the cities it's a good thing to relax. It's quiet and not so busy and here you can enjoy that it's quiet and stuff like that and I don't know. For us it's interesting to learn about how the people are living in this area and not in the city. So, stuff like that."
26. Set up of Avinoam Ashlag, Deep Desert tour guide
27. SOUNDBITE (English) Avinoam Ashlag, tour guide:
"More and more people want to come and to enjoy and to feel the emptiness and the peace and the silence of the desert and to just take their lives and just put it away for a few days and enjoy the emptiness of the desert."
28. Various of tourist Anastasia Andric abseiling
Associated Press, AP Clients Only
Ein Avdat, southern Israel – April 22 2018
29. Various of tourists in Bedouin tent
30. Various of Bedouin in tent talking to tourists
31. SOUNDBITE (English) Uri Sharon, Israel Tourism Ministry:
"We launched a campaign during the merger with the ITB (International Tourism Bourse) to promote the Negev (desert.) We decided the Negev is the sub-brand that the Israeli Ministry of Tourism was gonna promote. The sub-brand is called "Pure Desert Magic" and we're putting a lot of effort in order to promote this area. The Negev consists of 60 percent of Israel's geographical area and it's an important area to bring tourists."
Mitzpe Ramon, southern Israel – April 22, 2018
31. Birds in flight
32. Various of Kiel and Andric walking llamas
The Negev Desert makes up most of Israel's geographical territory.
About 60 percent of the country is barren landscape.
But, most tourists head for the night-life and beach parties of Tel Aviv or religious pilgrimages in Jerusalem.
Some 3.6 million tourists visited Israel in 2017 and the Ministry of Tourism hopes that the numbers will continue to grow in 2018.
Currently about 5 percent of visitors venture into the desert. Authorities are looking to increase that number to 20 percent by 2021 and have invested in a new airport in the region.
To boost their country's appeal Israel's Tourism Ministry launched a social media competition in which winners from Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden and Finland spend a hosted vacation in the Negev desert in southern Israel.
The winners were selected after sharing and commenting on an Israeli Tourism Ministry post. The lucky ones were brought to the country for a one night stay in a luxury tent in the Ramon Crater - a unique crater some 42 kilometers (26 miles) in diameter created by erosion.
Arriving just before sunset, two winners from Germany, Charline Wolff and Kassandra Thones are visibly impressed as they are ushered into the tent set up in the typically barren landscape.
Equipped with lush beds and lounging areas the two quickly brush off the dust and settle down in the desert-landscape.
"I feel like a little princess," says Wolff.
"Feels exciting because I've never done this before and I think it will be a lifetime experience to sleep under the stars and with no one around," says Thones.
Omer Seltzer, of the Happy Glamper company, explains how the mobile catering unit that accompanies the tent works.
"What we have here it's on wheels. So, it comes to anywhere in the desert. We have solar panels on the top that gives us clean energy for the whole camp. All the lights are from these solar panels. We have flowing water. We have 250 litres in the bottom, of water, so we can have water for all the night. We have a full kitchen with all you need to do to make any type of meal. We have a working fridge. We have a USB panel to charge your phone, we have wine, we have everything you need to do a perfect supper in the evening in the desert."
Itay Kadish Katz, is the manager of Happy Glamper company.
"This tent is a unique project because it's a pop-up. It's here for 14 days. Each night we host a couple from a different place in the world and we have really nice visitors here already. Each night the guests are coming something around sunset, they enjoy beers and then they have an amazing meal that we cook on a fire. Later on they have a bonfire we brought stargazing activities and a professional telescope. Then they have time to enjoy the tent and the facility and the luxurious design here."
Beyond the luxury tent the region's attractions include abseiling, trekking, visits to Bedouin tents and even a stroll around in the company of llamas.
Felix Kiel, and Anastasia Andric, who are also from Germany, chose to visit the desert region to experience first hand the lifestyle of people living far from the glowing lights of the cities.
"For us it's interesting to learn about how the people are living in this area and not in the city," Kiel says.
Tour guide, Avinoam Ashlag, echoes the appeal of an escape from the city.
He says more and more people visit wanting to put their daily lives on hold to "enjoy the emptiness of the desert".
Now the government wants more visitors to look beyond the man-made attractions of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and discover the stillness of the Negev desert.
"We launched a campaign during the merger with the ITB (International Tourism Bourse) to promote the Negev (desert.) We decided the Negev is the sub-brand that the Israeli Ministry of Tourism was gonna promote. The sub-brand is called "Pure Desert Magic" and we're putting a lot of effort in order to promote this area. The Negev consists of 60 percent of Israel's geographical area and it's an important area to bring tourists" says Uri Sharon, of the Israel Tourism Ministry.
In 2017 tourism brought some $5.6 billion to the country's economy with the bulk of tourists coming from the United States followed by visitors from Russia and France.
