A travel media agency overseeing one of the largest tourism networking conferences in the UK has been forced to disinvite Israel’s Ministry of Tourism from appearing due to threats made against its staff.

This year’s IMM conference, located at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Westminster, will be held on February 19-20 and connects travel writers with tourism boards from around the world.

TravMedia, the agency responsible for the conference, announced on X/Twitter Monday that Israel’s Government Tourist Office are “no longer attending IMM 2024.”
They added that despite striving to “remain neutral in matters of geopolitics,” in the run up to this year’s IMM members of their staff “have been subject to a campaign of personal intimidation and harassment.

“The safety and wellbeing of our staff remains our priority and it has therefore necessitated this decision,” the company said.

TravMedia declined to comment further when approached.

Director of UK & Ireland at the Israeli government’s Tourism Office, Michael Ben-Baruch, told the JC that they had been made aware “of the severity of the situation on [Monday] via several calls with TravMedia,

“Trav Media shared with us the harassment they experienced from people on social networks and private messages and how threatened they felt, which we took seriously.

“It is disappointing to learn that violent and threatening behaviour has caused this outcome. It was not an easy decision but ultimately, we consider TravMedia a close industry partner and we look forward to working together in the future.”

Earlier this month, a West End theatre cancelled an event featuring author Douglas Murray over threats made to venue staff from anti-Israel activists.