”One of the main goals of numerous contacts made by the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in the Kingdom of the Netherlands is to present our country to Dutch partners and send a picture of BiH as an interesting economic, cultural, and tourist destination,” stated BiH Ambassador in an interview withagency Fena, Almir Sahovic.
He explained that these contacts are established with the competent Dutch institutions, as well as many other actors of Dutch society – universities, schools, cultural institutions, tour operators, companies, media, local communities, and various citizens’ associations.
Special emphasis
Speaking about the activities of the Embassy of BiH in the Netherlands, Sahovic emphasized that given the pandemic that has lasted for two years, the Embassy was not able to implement all programs in the field of promotion of BiH in that country, but that they managed to maintain regular contact with the most important partners to keep their attention in BiH.
”In the past period, we have placed special emphasis on the promotion of BiH as an interesting tourist destination for Dutch tourists, especially in the field of winter tourism. The Netherlands is one of the member states of the European Union(EU), whose citizens mostly practice ski tourism, despite the fact that geographical conditions do not allow them to do that in their country,” the ambassador underlined.
Also, he thinks that there are real opportunities for a significant increase in the number of Dutch tourists in BiH in the followingperiod.
”In that sense, at the end of last year, the Embassy published a newsletter dedicated to the winter tourist potentials of our country, which we distributed to about 1.000 target addresses. The next step in the promotion of BiH tourism should be the organization of the promotion of BiH’s tourist offer for Dutch travel agencies this fall if the epidemiological situation allows it. Apart from promoting the economy and tourism, the Embassy intends to intensify activities in the coming period to promote the culture of our country, and connecting cultural and educational and higher education institutions of the two countries, ” he told.
About 60.000 citizens of BiH origin live in the Netherlands
Sahovic stressed that the Embassy of BiH has very good cooperation with the diaspora in all activities.
”According to our estimates, there are about 60.000 citizens of BiH origin in the Netherlands. Our diaspora is very well integrated into Dutch society, and at the same time, it has managed to maintain very close relations with its homeland. In this way, the BiH diaspora is a kind of bridge between the two countries, and as such has great potential for further improvement of concrete cooperation between BiH and the Netherlands, ” concluded the Ambassador of BiH to the Netherlands, Almir Sahovic at the end of the conversation.
