Tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors in Sarajevo and the city will be a good partner to those who decide to invest here, said the Mayor of Sarajevo Abdulah Skaka on Thursday, addressing the participants of the Sarajevo Business Forum (SBF) 2018.

The conference was organized for the ninth time this year, and it hosted a large number of officials and business people from the region and the world. Besides the economic cooperation, the main focus of the event was on the development of tourism.

Participants of the second day of the SBF, which commenced on Wednesday, had a chance to get acquainted with more than 60 projects from the sector of tourism. Apart from that, they also discussed the promotion of the region as an attractive tourist destination.

“The projects we will focus on in the upcoming period will be like this year's Sarajevo Business Forum,” said Skaka, adding that recent recovery of the Sarajevo cable car, the last city symbol that underwent a reconstruction, was a start of a new, accelerated development of the city.

Advisor for Regional Tourism at the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Takahiko Makina, who spoke at the panel discussion on tourism, emphasized that the South-East Europe region owned a potential for growth in the tourism sector and is currently in a moment when many steps should be made to move forward.

“Tourism deserves to be the driving force of the economic development of this region. It is encouraging that tourism is developing here,” said Makina.

According to the Project Leader for Tourism at the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) Snjezana Derviskadic, tourism is an industry sector where humans cannot be replaced with machines, and this makes it a strong sector.

Tourism in Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the fastest growing sectors, which makes an important part of Bosnia's economy. According to the World Tourism Organization, Bosnia tops the scale of increasing number of tourist with 20 percent growth rate for the past few years.