MEĐUGORJE, November 7 (FENA) - An international academic conference and roundtable entitled "Tourism in BiH - how to plan development in the (post)pandemic era" was held on Saturday in Međugorje, organized by the Herzegovina University, with the aim of strengthening structural dialogue which includes the academic community and other key interlocutors from the economic and civil part of society dealing with the development perspectives of tourism in the time of the pandemic.
The president of the Association of Tourism, Hotel Management and Private Accommodation Providers of Međugorje, Davor Ljubić, said that this year has shown that tourism can survive.
"One should know how to distinguish mass from individual tourism, and 2021 is a record year in terms of the number of individual tourist arrivals in the world, and there is nothing disputable about that. What is disputable is religious tourism, it has its shortcomings, and those shortcomings are customers, consumers aged 60 and over. People are in a way scared, organized arrivals in large groups are almost impossible, so our idea has been to turn to the individual, the person, the pilgrim and bring them back not in a virtual way, but to be here in person. Every pandemic has passed, so will this one, and we must turn to what we have," Ljubić pointed out.
He also stressed that "destinations as locations will survive", but that the question is how many people or companies will manage to survive as well.
"This is what we have to deal with in the coming period and we are definitely going in that direction to find some ways out of the crisis.
As for Međugorje, 2021 has been the year of the return of pilgrims from all over the world, although we still cannot compare it with what we had in 2019," said Ljubić.
(FENA) S. R.