Around the world corona virus pandemic had the biggest effect on tourism and it seems that catering and event organizing industry experienced the most severe impact. Results that Serbian tourism achieved in the record-breaking 2019 were promising that the following year tourism in Serbia would have its most successful season.
Even though there were attempts to make up for the lack of foreign tourists by Serbs who decided to spend their summer holiday in Serbia, corona virus epidemic made tourism yearn for sector aid and made tourist industry consider new security measures for passengers, as well as change its way of functioning.
According to the first findings presented in spring, six-month damage in tourism is estimated to around 300 million euros. Considering the data of the line ministry, at the end of 2020 the overall damage in tourism was estimated to a billion euros but it is difficult to make a precise estimate because the losses in entertainment industry and catering were immeasurable. Data of Serbian Business Registers Agency show that in April 2020 there were nearly 8,000 legal entities operating in tourism/catering and around 26,000 entrepreneurs, and statistically speaking, the number of expected events in 2020 was around 17,000. They were either cancelled or moved to 2021. The number of employees in the whole ‘event’ industry was about 10,000 working full-time and 50,000 part-time, i.e. seasonally, and as estimated by the group of event organisers, where only ‘EXIT’ festival annually makes 20 million euros, generated tourist and business profit was about 250 million euros in the entertainment tourism.
Sector of organizing events, manifestations, congresses, weddings, catering services, decoration agencies, confectioners, wedding dress shops, together with the sector of night clubs and bars came to a halt, meaning that there was a ban on gathering and working and the ban is still in force, which leads to enormous losses not only in Serbia but worldwide.
Besides catering and entertainment, other tourism segments, , such as air traffic, nautical tourism, lodging services including hostels, mountain homes, categorized flats in cities, hotels as the biggest foreign and domestic investments in Serbia, tourist agencies, guides, producers of souvenirs, transport services (rent-a-car agencies) work with 5% of their capacities and have been sustaining 100% loss for months…
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