The head of Bosnia’s association of tourism businesspeople, Senad Halilovic, said on Monday that his association is grateful to the Council of Ministers for finally opening the borders for all foreign citizens who present a negative test for coronavirus at the border but argued that the move came too late and that it should have been made more than four months ago.
He said the tourism, hotel, transport and similar industries, have “completely lost” the year 2020 due to the coronavirus restrictions and that various associations of employers and tourism businesspeople have been appealing to the government to open borders for foreigners since July 1.
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This was not done in time and now those industries suffer losses measured in millions of Bosnian Marks, he argued.
“Such huge losses in revenues in 2020 will result in less money in budgets to the amount of more than half a billion Bosnian Marks. By the end of 2020, these losses will be much higher and only then will it be clear to everyone in the Council of Ministers what damages the untimely decisions have caused,” he stressed.
Halilovic said that the latest Council of Ministers decision will nevertheless positively affect the situation in 2021, adding that he expects a significant rise in revenue in the tourism sector and that new jobs will be created.
“We expect the Council of Ministers to allow all foreign citizens to enter Bosnia and Herzegovina without having to take a test, which represents a significant cost for every tourist, as a condition,” Halilovic said, advocating that the country should follow the examples of Turkey and other countries which have completely simplified their procedures and reduced them to temperature measurements only, without any additional costs, or that the costs of tests in the future should be covered by the Council of Ministers.
