Majed Ishaq is a long-time tourism professional from Palestine. Committed to the tourism industry and to his country Palestine, and well-known at the local, regional, and international levels, he has devoted his entire professional career to the Palestinian tourism industry.
Majed was born and raised in Beit Sahour, near the Greek Orthodox Shepherds’ Field. He was schooled at Talitha Kumi and earned a BA in business administration, with a minor in marketing, from Bethlehem University. He is married and the father of a son and a daughter.
Being raised in a touristic city, he was often in direct contact with international visitors. One day, as he was going home from school at the age of eight, he stopped near the Shepherds’ Field Church and saw a group of tourists getting off their bus to enter the church. They looked at him and smiled. One of the tourists offered him a chocolate and patted him on the shoulder – a gesture that inspired his interest in working with tourists.
Majed is one of the founders of the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. The ministry sent him to complete his education and obtain a post-graduate diploma in tourism marketing from Bielefeld University in Germany in 1997. After that he was appointed by the ministry to work at the Bethlehem 2000 Authority for two years, from 1998 to 2000. He has played an important role in the establishment of the ministry’s General Department of Marketing and has made his mark in promoting Palestine in international markets.
Majed has represented the ministry in organizing and supervising a large number of international activities, especially international exhibitions in various cities throughout the world. He has also represented the ministry in many summits, conferences, and international tourism meetings, the most important of which are the meetings of the General Assembly of the United Nations World Tourism Organization.
Nowadays he is also the coordinator of the Tourism and Culture Sector Working Group, and he recently headed the team responsible for developing the Tourism Cluster Plan for Bethlehem Governorate.
