Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications Rasim Ljajić made official the beginning of the campaign “Welcome to Serbia – the smile of hospitality”, today, by distributing flyers to passengers at the border crossing of Horgoš.
Ljajić said that he expects the revenue of tourism in Serbia to surpass last year’s record, which stood at more than a billion dollars.
According to him, the campaign “Welcome to Serbia – the smile of hospitality” will run throughout the whole season at the toll booths on all the international corridors in Serbia, with the aim of promoting tourist destinations throughout Serbia.
Ljajić noted that last year about two million passenger vehicles with 5.5 million passengers entered Serbia, which is up by eight percent compared to last year.
The Minister also pointed out that from year to year the number of tourists in Serbia increases, and that last year was a record year in terms of revenue, with one billion and 52 million dollars, which is 50 times more than the in the year 2000, when the income amounted to 20 million dollars.
“We want to position tourism as an important economic branch in Serbia, which has not been the case so far, and this involves the exploitation of tourism resources, in order for tourism to gain an important place in the economic policy of the country, and we have to invest much more in infrastructure development, which is a prerequisite for the overall development and tourism,” said Ljajić.
He added that in the first months of the current year a slight increase was registered in the number of tourists (about 2.2 percent), and that a significant increase in the number of foreign tourists was also registered (15 percent), while the number of domestic tourists decreased by 5.6 percent, which is, in his opinion, the consequence of the floods and the situation resulting from the natural disaster that hit Serbia.
“We expect that this year’s tourism revenue will be higher than the record of 2013. Tourism has proven to be a very resilient and flexible industry which has resisted the global economic crisis as well as our financial crisis, and I believe that this year the proceeds will be even greater than in the previous year,” said Ljajić.
Asked about the traffic jams at the Horgoš crossing during the summer, Ljajić said that the tourist offer and environment can be improved through the efficiency of the customs and all other services in order to make the first impression of tourists a positive one.
The promoter of the campaign “Welcome to Serbia – the smile of hospitality,” is actor Nenad Okanović, who pointed out that the citizens of Serbia should first learn about their own country and recommended that schools should not organize trips abroad rather to first visit the beauty of our own country, which will thus be conveyed to others in the best way possible.
Representatives of the Tourist Organization of Subotica participated in the event, with the aim of familiarizing travelers at the Horgoš crossing with the possibility to rest only 15 kilometers from the border, where they can enjoy the beauty of Subotica and Palić, so that they would come back again for a longer period.
