Published by the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, 2009

Since 2000, when the Palestinian tourism sector launched its “renewal” through the Bethlehem 2000 project, intending to reinvigorate the tourism industry, the situation has remained stagnant.

Until 2008, that is, when the number of both daytime and overnight visitors to localities such as Bethlehem and Jericho returned to pre-Intifada days. One million visitors had come by October 2008.

In real terms those numbers are low, considering that the Palestinian territories include some of the most important religious and historic sites in the world. But for an area that is locked in, shut down, and walled off and whose borders are policed by often-not-so-friendly Israeli soldiers, it is an accomplishment.

Much of that has to do with the efforts of the Palestinian tourism industry’s private sector, which has gone to extraordinary lengths to bring tourists back to the country. By most accounts, the tourists are religious, and many come from the former communist-ruled Poland and Russia. But an increasing number are eco-tourists, solidarity groups, and those curious about this famous place, which has been under occupation and in world headlines for such a long time.

Strangely perhaps, the Gaza war added a new impetus to many Westerners and an increasing number of Asians to come and “visit with the Palestinians.”

This May, Pope Benedict XVI will make his personal pilgrimage to Palestine, visiting Jerusalem and Bethlehem and, perhaps most interestingly, a refugee community in Bethlehem, whose members have been housed in a camp for more than 60 years.

The visit is a boon to the Palestinian tourism industry and, of course, the Palestinian people as a whole. The timing of the visit is sensitive since it comes so soon after the devastating Gaza war and the subsequent election of one of the most openly right-wing Israeli governments in decades.

So the “friendly” pilgrimage to the Palestinians - and the poorest of them at that - will make for positive images of the Palestinians welcoming the Pope. And perhaps more importantly it will re-focus the world on the most basic issues that confront those who wish to resolve and end the conflict.

That Palestinians are “real” people with “real” lives is chronicled in Palestine: Celebrating the Faithful, a beautiful 160-page coffee-table photo book published by the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities on the occasion of the papal visit.

That the real highlight of a visit to Palestine is meeting its people and not just admiring the history of its stones is the point of the book, which will be presented to the Pope by President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem on 13 May 2009.