Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications Rasim Ljajić has said in the ceremony of awarding the “Tourism Flower” Award, organised for celebrating the World Tourism Day, that the Strategy for Tourism Development in the Republic of Serbia will be adopted in a month.

He has said that the plan for the next four years is to increase the number of nights the tourists spend here from 6.6 million to 9.6 million, and that the income from tourism will be increased from 2.5 billion to 3.7 billion dollars, while the foreign currency inflow will be increased from 1.1 billion to 2.2 billion dollars.

“I believe we can achieve that. Nothing can happen on its own, so in order to achieve it we need structural changes to be implemented jointly, as partners”, says Mr Ljajić.

He has added that the average rates were never enough in helping a country to survive a crisis and make dynamic growth, so therefore we need to “leap over the steps” in order to achieve a better development that the average development of the neighbouring countries so that we could catch up with those ahead.

“In order to achieve that it is necessary to have a clear plan. We will hopefully adopt the Strategy for Tourism Development in a month. It defines measurable objectives everyone could monitor, but it can also help us to see how much we have done”, Minister has stated.

Mr Ljajić has stressed that five destinations – Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kopaonik, Zlatibor and Vrnjačka Banja attract 72 per cent of foreign tourists, so that it is necessary to increase the tourism offer and attract foreign tourist to other sites, since Serbia has a lot to offer.

He has invited the local self-governments and touristic organisations to create projects to be supported by the Ministry, with the message that the government and the ministry cannot realised the things which is the priority of local self-governments.

“In the future, when we see that a local self-government invests nothing, we will also invest nothing, since if you don’t need investments in the touristic potential, why would we recognise it as an important potential”, Mr Ljajić has warned.

He has also reminded that next year will be devoted to a promotion of touristic potential of the Danube.

Stating that more than 70 per cent of tourists come from the ex-Yugoslav republics, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and Greece, Mr Ljajić thinks that the scope and the number of countries of our guests must be bigger.