Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications Rasim Ljajić said that amendments to the Law on Tourism will contribute to the combat against grey economy in this filed and will improve protection of passengers.

Explaining the Law on Amendments to the Law on Tourism in the Parliament, Ljajić said that new solutions envisage decentralization of competences of the inspection supervision of local self-government units and envisage that inspections may, in the future, control the operation of the private sector, fulfillment of minimum technical requirements in the private sector and rural households, and collection of the residence tax.

The amendments also envisage introduction of a misdemeanor warrant for natural persons and legal entities.

“We believe that, in this way, we will expedite and make more efficient and better the collection of penalties and unburden misdemeanor courts” the Minister of Tourism said.

In terms of protection of passengers, Ljajić reminded that the state has often been powerless in protecting defrauded passengers because even after initiating a procedure for the revocation of licenses, the Law allowed agencies to continue to operate until the end of the administrative procedure.

“Now we are correcting this illogical occurrence and the inspection will have greater competences, it will be able to impose fines and initiate a procedure for the revocation of licenses” Ljajić said and added that, in the future, an agency will issue a travelling confirmation which will contain a guarantee and an explanation regarding the activation of that guarantee.

The amendments also envisage that trip organizers must have a bank guarantee or an insurance policy in order to get a license to work, and they must ensure each individual trip in order to guarantee insurance payment to the passengers in case of possible fraud.

He said that, in the future, there will be more precisely specified conditions under which trade union organization, ferial associations and mountain organizations may organize tourist trips.

“Those trips will have to be part of the annual plan of all the associations and they will not be advertised. Associations will inform their members about the trips and this implies exclusion of commercialization” Ljajić explained.

The Minister said that the Law will envisage incentives for organized tourist trips “in order to attract domestic and foreign tourists” and noted that the amount of incentives will depend on disposable funds.

The amendments also envisage clear criteria for the selection of directors of tourism organizations on all levels.

“We will also define clear conditions for forming tourism organizations. Currently there are about 120 of them and this is quite an inefficient system, and our goal is to encourage the association of local tourism organizations into regional tourism organizations with the final goal of turning them into a destination management organization and enable better management of a certain destination”, the Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia said.

He gave the example of Kopaonik, which is one of the most important destinations and does not have its tourism organization.
The Minister estimated that the previous amendments to the Law adopted in 2009 did not contribute to the reduction of grey economy in tourism and that they were not harmonized with other EU regulations and directives.

In terms of the Agreement between the Governments of Serbia and Macedonia on cooperation in the field of tourism, Ljajić said that this is an agreement which Serbia has with almost all the countries in the region.

“The objective is to try to unite tourist capacities and create a joint tourism product and jointly attract more foreign tourists” Ljajić said and noted that Macedonia is very important for Serbia considering that more and more tourists come from that country.

Explaining the proposal of the Agreement on economic cooperation between Serbia and Macedonia, Ljajić said that this Agreement contains an identical wording to the agreement which Serbia concluded with Macedonia in 2009 and which ceased to be in effect in 2013, and that the novelty in the proposed Agreement is an automatic renewal clause.

“The Agreement on economic cooperation is important as Macedonia is an important economic partner for Serbia” Ljajić said and specified that last year’s trade exchange amounted to EUR 664 million and that Macedonia is the seventh export market for the Serbian economy, and Serbia is the fourth foreign trade partner for Macedonia.

Explaining the amendments to the Statues of the World Tourism Organization, Ljajić said that Serbia ratified six out of nine amendments and that, once it has ratified the remaining three amendments, it will be the only country, in addition to the Netherlands, Lithuania and Spain, which ratified all the amendments.