What is your agency's mission for Serbian tourism this year?
National Tourist Organization is a government organization specialized for promotional activities abroad and inside the country. For this year we are preparing a new campaign that has a promotional slogan 'Serbia- three times love' which is to demonstrate the first love as the love for our beautiful nature, the second one stands for our culture and the third one is for our hospitality and people.
This promotion aims at improving the image of Serbia as well as bringing our country back to the European and worldwide tourist brochures and especially to WTO activities after 10 years of isolation. This is the first year that this country is included in all the World's tourist organizations (European Tourism Commission, the Danube Tourism Commission and the Regional Tourism Committee; the Committee of South- Eastern Europe). That is the first and most important step in our promotion.
The next step in promotion is cooperation with our neighboring countries on bilateral communication. We are already making some drafts with countries like Hungary, Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovakia and Check Republic on promoting this region. This means that Serbia is back on the European map.
Our other task is to develop Serbian tourism and to create a common product of the region especially on the subject of rural tourism. On the 1st of June we have the first congress of rural tourism organized by WTO in Belgrade. Serbia has a strong potential for rural tourism, which is becoming more and more popular in Europe nowadays. The third task is to open our geographical position towards the center of Europe. Serbia was very important for its transit position and we want to maintain that position again and open the roads, railroads and the Danube for the World.
What would be the master plan for this year and when are going to implement it?
For us it is very important to have our master plan but we need some money for that. Therefore we are looking for some international funds or banks that would support that. We are hoping that WTO can help us find some European funds like United Nation Development Program or the World Bank.
What kind of domestic tourism in your opinion has the biggest potential in the future?
This country has a huge variety of tourist offers. The most popular and profitable one is spa tourism with the places like Vrnjacka Banja or Soko Banja. Organized tourism in these spas dates from 150 tears ago. We have more than 60 places of this kind that are both health and recreation centers. For their possibilities of healthy water, mud and gas, those spas are in a way unique for this country. The other kind is the mountain tourism with famous ski center Kopaonik, specially popular in Great Britain with its 50 ski lifts and more than 8000 bed capacity.
| The third one is cultural tourism. We are a country of monasteries and some of them like Studenica, Sopocani or Stari Ras, are protected by UNESCO. There are more than 1000 monasteries in our country but only 40 of them are included in our tourist route. Studenica and Sopocani are among the South-European culture itinerary, which means that we are a part of the international program as a connection between central and Western Europe. There is also the possibility for hunting and fishing. In the future after the bridges are reconstructed we hope to develop the Danube tourism as well probably by the year 2004. Another interesting field of tourism that we are focusing our priorities on from this year is the rural tourism that has a great potential.
What are your expectations of profit for this year?
For the year 2002 we expect 2.5 million tourists and about 7,5 million overnights. That is approximately the two-thirds of the figure we had at the beginning of '90 and we want to achieve that level now and then to develop it to the level of the other foreign countries.
What kind of possibilities can you offer to the foreign investors?
All types of cooperation. What is important now is that foreign investors can find here the same legislation as in any other European country and also the privatization process is at full speed and those are very important facts for the foreign capital to come in. This year we are open for different types of businesses with more than 300 hotels that the investors can either buy or make joint- ventures or even build some new ones.
How do you see the Serbian tourism in the near future?
I think that in some year time our offer and standards will reach European level and that we will develop our country in the best possible way. At the moment we have only 10% of our general tourist capacity developed so we still have a lot to do and many things to work on. Due to our special holiday offers I strongly believe that this country is going to take its position on the European market.
What would be your final message to the readers of Forbes as investors but also the tourists as well?
Come and visit us and we will make sure you find enough interesting places to see as well as variety of business opportunities.
Thank you very much
Thank you
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