Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications Rasim Ljajić has said early today that this year a record inflow of foreign currency from tourism has been approximately, or even over one billion euros.
This year has been one of the most successful ones for Serbian tourism, as assessed by Mr Ljajić at the press conference, saying that the goal is to work harder in the upcoming period on positioning of Serbia as a serious touristic destination.
Mr Ljajić has said at the Tourism Organisation of Serbia that everything which has been done in previous period in that respect is fruitful and resulted in a record inflow of foreign currency from tourism which is over one billion euros.
Minister of Tourism has also added that in the first ten months in 2016, the number of nights the tourist spent in our country was the same as the number of nights the tourists had spent in 12 months in 2015.
“All the results encourage us to work more and achieve the goals and work on branding of Serbia as a serious touristic destination”, Mr Ljajić has said.
He has reminded that the Strategy for Developing Tourism for the period by 2025 has been recently adopted, defining 10 foreign, 1 new touristic product and 18 significant touristic destinations for foreign and domestic tourists.
“We don’t want it to be a list of nice wishes, but we are starting with its realisation at January 1”, Mr Ljajić said.
He has stated that all achieved results in tourism were contributed by opening of new lines of the national airline company, and additional five new destinations are being worked on, including flights to New York, as well as an increasing number of low cost companies bringing passengers to the airport in Niš.
“We hope that this trend will continue in 2017”, Mr Ljajić said.
He has said that this year 77 various infrastructure projects have been realised and that numerous international meetings and events have been organised in Serbia, which, among other things, classifies Serbia as one of the top countries when it comes to congress tourism.
Next year, as he has explained, the focus will be on the Danube and numerous projects will be realised in that respect. The idea is to have every single dinar invested in tourism pay off. As he has announced, in January, 60.000 vouchers will be allocated to citizens for spending a holiday in one of the touristic places in Serbia. Attracting investors who will build hotels in Serbia will also continue.
“I hope that the year 2017 will be a record year with record results”, Mr Ljajić said.
The director of the Tourism Organisation of Serbia Marija Labović has expressed her hope that a positive trend will continue in 2017. She has reminded that this year the number of tourists increased by 12 per cent.
As she has said, numerous activities realised in 2016 will be continued, and that they will be promoted more online through social networks.
Ms Labović has mentioned the research conducted among foreign tourists visiting our country, among which 64 per cent of the interviewees said that they had decided to visit Serbia thanks to some of online campaigns.
Around 33 per cent of them had made that decision, as they said, because of the good relation of prices and quality, and 48 per cent said they planned to come back.
The source markets in 2017 will be Germany, Russia, Great Britain, Ex-YU countries, countries in the region, as stated by Ms Labović, adding that thanks to the visa-free regime with China, we expect a huge interest of the tourists from China to visit Serbia. The tourists coming from Emirates, and Iran as well, will make a significant share as well, as pointed out by Ms Labović
