Assistant Minister for Tourism Renata Pindžo has stated in the TV show on RTS, that in the first month there have been 57 per cent more applications of citizens who want to use the vouchers compared to the same period last year.
“This year’s action started on January 1, as we had promised. So far there have been 3.900 citizens applying for subsided use of holidays with the vouchers. Citizens can apply until October 15, while they can use them until November 20”, Assistant Minister has said.
Ms Pindžo has said that at the moment there are 375 hospitality facilities where the citizens can realised their vouchers. “The structure of hospitality operators is diverse. There are camps, most luxurious domestic hotels, private rooms, apartments. The list of hospitality facilities is updated every Friday and hospitality operators can apply as long as the action is on”, she has explained.
Speaking of the most wanted destinations, Ms Pindžo has said that Vranjčka Banja, Prolom banja, Sokobanja, Banja Kanjiža, Banja Koviljača, Zlatibor, Kopaonik, Divčibare and Tara are proclaimed as the touristic destinations most interested to the citizens.
Ms Pindžo has stressed that the year 2016 was the record year for Serbian tourism when 7 million tourist’s nights and 2.7 million arrivals.
“The number of foreign tourist in Serbia increases by 13 per cent a year, and currently most of them are on the mountains but also spa centres. We are a market attracting most tourists from the neighbouring countries but the most increasing number of tourists are those from Turkey, Bulgaria, Germany, China. We find this rather important because of the recently introduced visa-free system with China, announced flights but also our initiatives for the creation of a joint product with the neighbouring countries for tourists coming from distant markets.
Speaking of the plans for 2017, Ms Pindžo has announced that Serbian tourism has got ambitious plans and that together with our national airline company it has been working on attracting tourists from the USA, Russian Federation and China.
Assistant Minister has reminded that we are having two competitions at the moment, granting subsidies and grants for projects of development tourism and granting loans for encouraging the quality of the tourist offer. “When granting funds, the Ministry will ensure to approve those projects in line with our strategic objective, i.e. in accordance with the recently adopted Strategy for Development of Tourism of the Republic of Serbia, especially when it comes to destinations”, Ms Pindžo has concluded.
