The ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) to Egypt, Sabit Subasic, announced the first-ever official visit of an Egyptian minister to our country, and it concerns the Minister of Tourism, Sherif Fathy.
That is not all – among the good news, he highlighted the dramatic increase in the number of tourists visiting BiH and, for the first time, the existence of large group travels, and in addition, the first-ever Cairo-Sarajevo flight has been established.
“At this moment, it’s a charter, but we will work with the Egyptian side to establish a regular route. On social media in Egypt, BiH is now presented as the top tourist destination in the region,” he stated.
Fathy, Egypt’s minister of tourism and antiquities, will soon arrive in our country, and this visit could be a new impulse in strengthening bilateral relations between the two countries.
“We are working with the Egyptian side on preparing bilateral activities and visits of officials from various fields, and they are also interested in concretizing the close relations between the two countries with different concrete cooperation projects of mutual interest,” Subasic emphasizes.
“The minister will have a very intensive program and talks with domestic partners so that we can reach a new momentum in the tourism exchange between the two countries. We must establish that, despite the results we have recently achieved, the tourism exchange with Egypt is not at a sufficiently high level. The fact is that we still have a significantly higher number of our citizens going to Egyptian tourist destinations than Egyptians coming to BiH. Fathy, during our first meeting, showed interest in visiting our country. He is at the head of a huge ministry with large capacities. Tourism in Egypt, despite the political instability in the region, is a strongly growing industry that will, in the near future, bring this country into the category of global tourist powers,” Subasic pointed out.
Promotion of the country
Ambassador Subasic is one of those who have long insisted on the complementarity of diplomacy and the promotion of tourism as an industry.
“One of the fundamental tasks of diplomacy is the promotion of countries. We in BiH have the privilege of living in a beautiful country, but all of this has not even come close to being presented to the world. In our diplomacy, we must work more intensively to present ourselves to the world. Financial resources must be provided, promotion projects prepared, etc. Our growing tourism industry must find its interest in all of this and support the efforts we are investing in the promotion of tourism capacities and values. I must add that I’ve had many experiences where people, after visiting BiH, decided to connect economically to our country in some way, and that they started some kind of investment…” said Subasic.
He believes that tourism exchange is an area with great potential and has multiple significance in the bilateral cooperation of states for several reasons.
“On the other hand, our experiences indicate that Egyptians who visited BiH were thrilled with what they experienced, including the hospitality, which they say is unique,” says Subasic.
He emphasizes the extraordinary tourism capacities and possibilities and underlines that we need a balanced national concept and tourism development strategy.
“Somehow, tourism in BiH is too fragmented, limited to a few tourist centers, while many areas are neglected, even though they have potentially huge chances for tourism development. I think that BiH as a whole territory can be a large and attractive destination. Any kind of fragmentation can only bring partial results,” he said.
The image of the country is essentially important for overall development, is one of his messages.
“If the image of the country is at a low level, it is difficult to expect significant steps forward in economic development. By damaging the image of one part of the country, the image of the country as a whole is damaged. Citizens should recognize that every such public action, especially by certain holders of power, causes direct harm to both them and the environment,” he said.
He believes there should be an organized, national approach to organizing that image and states that it is possible to speed up the visa process for Egyptian tourists, because such concrete steps would immediately bring great results that would be reflected in the number of tourists coming to BiH, Klix.ba writes.
