Tourism could be Bosnia’s top sector if it was better organised, Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations, Stasa Kosarac, said at a conference on Monday.

Kosarac spoke at the ‘Tourism – a turning point in economic recovery’ conference in Sarajevo, saying that he found that not enough people are employed in the sector.

“I believe that tourism can be a top sector in BiH. Statistics show that we have elements for that through clearly defined policies. We can make this sector much more organized,” he said.

“In 2019, we realized 1,000,600 arrivals in BiH and 3,000,300 overnight stays. In 2020, we had 420 thousand arrivals and about 1,000,300 overnight stays,” he said, adding that the coronavirus pandemic had a huge impact on tourism in the country.

“Workers in the tourism industry need help the most,” he stressed, adding that he will advocate for the idea of setting up an organizational investment forum for tourism in BiH with EU Special Representative, Johann Sattler, as well as US Ambassador, Eric Nelson, and other ambassadors.

According to Sattler, the share of tourism in Bosnia’s GDP is currently 10 percent, and “if we look at the neighbouring countries and its potential, this is a figure that can certainly grow by 15 percent.”