During the pandemic, Serbia put the following support measures in place through a specific programme for the tourism and hospitality sectors, with funding of RSD 5.4 billion:
Payment of the minimum wage to employees in the fields of hospitality and tourism.
Subsidies to support the work of tourist guides, tour escorts and the hotel sector.
Support for night bars and nightclubs as well as travel agencies and tour operators.
Serbia has a Tourism Development Strategy for the period 2016‑25. The Strategy is implemented through a mixture of strategic master plans, a Strategic Marketing Plan, a Product Development Programme, and spatial and urban plans. The Tourism Development Strategy also establishes a competitive arena for the business sector in Serbian tourism. The National Tourism Development Strategy is being revised due to the changed situation in the market in the post-COVID‑19 era.
Beyond the National Development strategy, Serbia is implementing the following strategies and programmes for tourism:
A programme for allocating and using subsidies, transfers, and grants for tourism development projects.
Legislation on approving and using credit funds to encourage a high-quality tourist offer.
Legislation on allocating funds to encourage the improvement of domestic tourism.
Continued support for the tourism and hospitality sectors as the COVID‑19 pandemic evolves.
A Central Information System (CIS/e‑tourist) was recently introduced as a unique and centralised information system that combines data on all accommodation providers and facilities (see box below). The digitalisation of the tourism offer in Serbia was recently started and is expected to be completed in May 2023.
Lessons from the pandemic include the importance of developing tourism in smaller rural areas, not only in large cities. During the pandemic, domestic tourists spent their summer holidays in rural areas engaging in outdoor activities, leading to an increase in tourism-related businesses to accommodate the new visitors, provide food services and rent private rooms, houses, and apartments for people working from home. This had positive impacts, including increased employment of women in rural areas, encouraged entrepreneurship, and boosted tourism employment (e.g. local guides, national park rangers, and food suppliers). It also revealed the necessity to involve residents in creating the local tourist offer where possible. This creates an attractive and competitive tourism offer for different market segments.
Serbia has co‑ordinated existing regulations, legal frameworks, standards, and protocols to ensure that they reflect the sector’s changing needs and facilitate recovery and post-COVID‑19 growth. Pandemic support focused on two areas: developing the safe travel protocol (using the World Travel and Tourism Council’s Safe Travels standard) and creating a new support package for the tourism sector. This support was delivered through wage subsidies, business subsidies, domestic vouchers, and business grants.
The ministry provided support measures, including the development of a voucher programme for catering services for domestic tourists; programmes for tour operators to welcome organised inbound tourism groups; improvement of the investment climate through a system of incentives (both for domestic and overseas investors) to support investments in tourism development in co‑ordination with local governments.
Serbia also finances projects for promotion, education, and training to support the improvement of tourism facilities, with co-financing of up to 100% for capital projects and 50% for promotion.
