The Federal Ministry of Environment and Tourism points out that tourists in FBiH in 2025 stayed on average for two days, and the extension of stay is one of the key details that are being strategically worked on to strengthen the tourist season.
“The Federation of BiH has rich natural, cultural-historical and gastronomic potentials, as well as diverse geographical characteristics that enable the development of all types of tourism. These resources form a solid basis for creating a quality, diverse and competitive tourist offer that can motivate tourists to extend their stay,”they emphasized in a statement to Fena from the Federal Ministry of Environment and Tourism.
The Ministry makes a significant contribution to the development of that sector through public calls for the selection and co-financing of projects in the field of tourism.
“Four million BAM was allocated for this purpose this year, and one of the important criteria for certain programs on our public call was how to keep tourists at the destinations as long as possible,” the Ministry says, adding that in this context they were looking for effective projects that help extend the season, that is, the fight against ‘seasonality’.
However, the problem of ‘seasonality’ is not the only one affecting the tourist season in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. One of the big problems when creating any analyses, assessments and strategies is collecting accurate figures about tourists.
The Ministry points out that they use the data of the Federal Bureau of Statistics and that, in addition, six county tourist boards use the application prajka.ba, through which accommodation service providers report the arrivals and overnight stays of tourists.
“The Ministry, in cooperation with the EU and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany (BMZ), through the Initiative for the Development of the Private Sector in BiH, implemented by GIZ, is working on the digital transformation of the tourism sector and the introduction of the application prijava.ba in the remaining four counties,” they emphasize.
At the same time, they point out that the establishment of a single tourist registration system in all counties of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is an important step towards centralized, sustainable and transparent management of tourist data.
Unfortunately, the Federal Bureau of Statistics does not currently have data on total revenues from tourism. The reason for this, the Ministry says, is that “we are talking about multi-sectoral data that cover a wide range of activities – from accommodation, catering and transport, to cultural, sports and other services that tourists use during their stay”.
“We hope that in the future an appropriate database will be developed that will enable monitoring of the complete economic impact of tourism, in which statistical institutes should play the largest role. We are also working on this in our domain with the aforementioned platform prijava.ba,” they state and add that there is no data on average tourist spending.
One of the problems in tourism is the failure to register guests, and in this regard the Ministry encourages owners of private accommodation facilities to register and categorize the facilities, which would ensure legal business and increase competitiveness in the market.
Additionally, in cooperation with the Ministry of Trade and Tourism of the RS and the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH, efforts are being made to limit the advertising of unregistered properties via digital platforms, and a request has been sent to the Booking.com platform to advertise only registered properties with a valid operating permit.
What can ‘improve the blood count’ of tourism in the Federation, as everywhere else, is the number of highly categorized properties, and the Federal Ministry of Environment and Tourism is responsible for the categorization of four- and five-star accommodation facilities.
So far, a total of 530 tourist facilities have been categorized, of which 14 hotels with five stars (8 in KS, 3 in HNŽ, 2 in ŽSB and 1 in TK), two tourist resorts (1 in KS, 1 in ŽSB), three apartments (all in KS), 19 holiday homes (18 in KS and 1 in HNŽ), eight holiday homes in households (4 in KS, one in HNŽ, ZDK, ŽSB and ZHŽ) and six apartments in the household (3 in KS and one each in ZDK, USK and ZHŽ).
Sarajevo Canton continues to be the leading destination with the highest growth, as record numbers were again achieved during the Sarajevo Film Festival, followed by Herzegovina-Neretva County, Una-Sana Canton, Tuzla and Central Bosnia Counties.
In some counties, preparatory activities for the next tourist season have already begun, and they are being carried out in accordance with the specifics of each destination.
“We at the Ministry, with the experience we have from this year’s and public calls from previous years, are talking to people in the field, with people from tourism and institutions dealing with this area, in order to respond to the needs for sustainable tourism development in the most adequate way possible,” conclude the Federal Ministry of Environment and Tourism.
