TOURISM SECTOR IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA – STATE AND DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVE
Nusret Drešković, Ševkija Okerić, Ranko Mirić, Amina Sivac
DOI: 10.35666/25662880.2017.3.121
UDC: 338.487:339.13(497.6)
Abstract: Basic characteristics of contemporary tourism development of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its administrative-political organization units are essentially linked to still insufficient infrastructure and legislative-institutional tourism organization. Regardless of the fact that in most development strategies of all administrative and political-organizational units in Bosnia and Herzegovina tourism is recognized as one of the basic strategies, the development level of tourism industry towards all indicators is significantly lagging behind at the level of the entire European tourism market. According to data from the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Bosnia and Herzegovina is only 113 out of total of 136 countries, according to tourism traffic, out of a record number of 1,235 billion. Of international tourists’ arrivals, which were taken worldwide in 2016, Bosnia and Herzegovina has averaged less than 0.1%. The total number of tourist arrivals was around 1.149 million in 2016, of which international arrivals accounted for about 62.6%, while the remaining 37.4% were domestic arrivals. The total number of nights spent in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the year 2016 was 2,377 million. In relation to the above mentioned indicators, positive trends in the number of tourists have increased in the past 10 years with an average annual rate of about 2.5%. These data indicate that Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the improvement of institutional and infrastructure capacities, should significantly improve the overall tourism traffic and achieve a significantly better position within the regional European market in the next ten year period.
Key words: Bosnia and Herzegovina, tourism development, World economic forum, international tourist arrivals, year-on-year growth rate