The mayor of Tel Aviv rushed to help the German travel blogger lift her luggage away from the incoming tide as she made her way into the city’s newest beachfront digs — a wooden lifeguard tower refurbished as a pop-up luxury suite.

As part of an effort to market Israel as a winter tourist destination for Europeans, the city of Tel Aviv and Israel’s tourism ministry have teamed up with a local hotel chain to temporarily transform the tower into a two-story suite, with hot tub, room service and very unobstructed ocean views.

“There is a phenomenon of hotel rooms in unexpected or unusually inaccessible places,” said Eytan Schwartz, head of Tel Aviv Global and Tourism.

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Only 15 couples, winners of an online competition, will get to stay in the tower, whose stilts are buffeted by the waves.

Boutique hotels have in recent years perched guests in tree houses, construction cranes and salt flats, but Tel Aviv’s is believed to be the first to occupy a lifeguard hut.

Israel’s tourism industry welcomes around 4 million visitors a year.

“Today tourism looks for cities,” Amir Halevi, director-general of the ministry, told Reuters. “We sell Israel through Tel Aviv.”—Reuters

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