At the 104th session of the Executive Council of the UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) in Luxor, Serbia has been chosen as the vice-chair of the Executive Council for 2017 and the chair will be Azerbaijan.
Assistant Minister for Tourism Renata Pindzo in her speech at the session has expressed gratitude for the trust regarding the election of Serbia as the vice-chair and once again pointed out that tourism is recognised as one of the priority branches in the economic agenda of Serbian Government. She has been particularly pleased to say that the statistical data on the income from tourism and inflow of foreign currency in the first eight months continue the upward growth trend. “In the first eight months, Serbia has faced an increase in the number of tourists of 12 per cent, and the inflow of foreign currency from tourism was increased by 11 per cent comparing to the same period last year. Despite these good results, we should continue working harder in order to improve our sector of tourism. The Strategy for Tourism Development, adopted by the National Council for Tourism Development, foresees concrete measures for further improvement of tourism in the Republic of Serbia and strengthening its contribution to the gross domestic product and the total employment in general”, Ms Pindzo has concluded.
She has also added that Serbia is particularly focused on the importance of regional cooperation and initiatives with the aim to create a joint touristic product in order to attract tourist from distant markets, specifically from China and South Korea. “We expect that Belgrade will have a direct air line with Beijing which will connect this region with the fastest growing market” she has stated pointing out the significance of the recently introduced line Belgrade-New York.
Assistant Minister Ms Pindžo has confirmed that Serbia is actively involved in marking the year 2017 as the year of sustainable tourism and has supported the idea of the UNWTO to form working groups for safety in tourism, due to contemporary challenges faced by tourism nowadays.
