Ministry of Trade, Tourism, and Telecommunications and Serbian Chamber of Commerce (SCC) have organised todays a round table within a public debate on the Draft Law on Hospitality.

Secretary for Tourism Miroslav Knežević has stated that, having in mind the EU regulation, the regulation of developed countries, the level of achieved development in tourism in Serbia, and the requirements of the hospitality sector, we now have the conditions to make a separate Law on Hospitality in order to systemically regulate this field.

Draft of the mentioned law was made as a result of the situation analysis in tourism market and by having an overview of the issue faced by the stakeholders of the hospitality sector.

As a priority task the Draft Law on Hospitality defines the need for a reduction of grey economy in hospitality.

The mentioned draft introduces the central information system in the field of hospitality and tourism (eTourist) as a unique and centralised electronic information system, containing all the relevant data about accommodation service providers and accommodation facilities, through which their registration is done and the data on performing the activity of hospitality, nautical and hunt tourism, and tourism in general are entered.

It assorts and collects, stores, processes and uses the personal data, rights of people and protection of the rights of the people whose data are collected and processed, limits the personal data protection and security of data, in the manner defined by the law regulating the personal data protection.

Also, the proposed law defines that each accommodation service provided for the period shorter than 30 days shall be considered as provision of hospitality service of accommodation.

Incentives are introduced for natural persons, providers of accommodation services in the facility of domestic handcraft, and rural touristic households. Namely, there are no liabilities to provide services through mediators, then there is a lump-sum payment of the residence fee and other incentives.

When the representatives of the Ministry presented the proposed solution along with the Draft Law on Hospitality, the participants of the round table, representatives of the commerce sector, academic community and experts in this field, have presented their own opinion, in the form of questions and comments, about the mentioned Draft Law.

Remarks, proposals, and suggestions can be submitted before 20 June electronically to the email address: turizam@mtt.gov.rs or by post mail to the address Omladinskih brigade 1, Belgrade, with the note “Public Debate – Draft Law on Hospitality”.