The 39th international tourism fair in Belgrade closed yesterday. 1,100 exhibitors from 56 countries, including China, Russia and India participated in the Fair. Also, this was China’s first appearance at the Fair.
Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic opened the International Tourism Fair on Thursday. In his opening address, Vucic said that Serbia earned “one billion and 42 million euros from tourism last year.”
Vucic congratulated “the Belgrade Fair and the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications on excellent results and said that Serbia is becoming more and more attractive to guests from the West,” the government said in a statement. He also noted that the growth of tourism in Serbia over the past three years stood at ten percent, while the average growth in the world is four percent” and in Europe two percent.
The countries of the Western Balkans have great tourist potential on the market of the third countries. For that reason it is necessary to improve cooperation because no country can succeed on its own,” he said.
“In 2016, the number of Chinese tourists increased by 29 percent. We expect more of them because I expect that one Chinese airliner will soon establish a direct flight from Belgrade to Beijing,” Serbian PM said. Vucic added that Serbia planned to make arrangements with neighbouring countries, such as Montenegro and Hungary, to present a joint offer to Chinese tour operators.
Liu Cheng, director of the Budapest branch of the China National Tourism Administration, said the branch was founded last March in Budapest to promote China as a tourist destination among central and eastern European countries, and to establish tourism connections between China and these countries, including Serbia.
“These years we have seen a rapid growth of Chinese outbound tourists to CEE countries, with an annual number of 800,000 tourists,” Liu said. “Among these countries, the Czech Republic is the most popular.”
(IN News, EIN News, 25.02.2017)
http://world.einnews.com/article/368214691/3njwiJNz1yNRRDCZ?lcf=hVCmyq6j_BmREWnEZwcUjg%3D%3D
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