An App to Manage Crowd in Jesus’ Birthplace This Christmas
The app aims to ensure the regular flow of tourists at the Church of the Nativity, where during the regular hours, visitors has to wait hours to see the underground grotto where Christians believe Jesus was born.
As the big day of the year is fast approaching, Bethlehem is buzzing with happenings. This Christmas more tourists are expected to visit the Biblical city than previous years and therefore in order to manage the crowd in the city, modern technology for the first time will be used to deal with it.
The crowds at the church, on the site where Jesus is believed to have been born, is much higher than other places and therefore the authorities are planning to introduce an advance reservation system through an app.
The app, though formally will be introduced early next year with the aim to ensure the regular flow of tourists at the Church of the Nativity, where during the regular hours, visitors has to wait hours to see the underground grotto where Christians believe Jesus was born. The technical team is working on the details of the app, which will be in English language.
According to sources, the tour groups or tourism companies will use the app to visit the site, which is in the Israeli occupied West Bank, but the Palestinian tourism ministry has confirmed that the app would be available for everyone.
On the other hand, many are of the view that this app is going to help the tourists in visiting the holy place which is controlled by three churches, the Catholics, Greek Orthodox and the Armenian Church, the need of such an app is long due. Orthodox Priest Issa Thaljieh said, “There is a huge squeeze. With the app, everyone will know what time to enter and which groups are there, so it will become more organised”.
On the other hand Ali Abu Srour, the Palestinian deputy tourism minister said the app would also provide information about the church and its traditional history to the tourist. He said, with this app “We are going digital with this issue”.
It is around the Christmas period that tourism in Bethlehem is at its peak with hotels reporting high occupancy rates during. In total, around 2.8 million tourists have visited Palestine, especially Bethlehem this year, which is comparatively higher in number, 2.5 million last year, according to the records of the tourism ministry.
Bethlehem is a town in Palestine in the south of Jerusalem in West Bank and is regarded as the biblical birthplace of Jesus and therefore a major Christian pilgrimage destination.