Macedonian Economy Minister Bekim Neziri who pays official visit to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) headquartered in Madrid, Wednesday met with its secretary-general Taleb Rifai. At the meeting Neziri received full support for tourism development in Macedonia.

Neziri who pays first visit to UNWTO HQ since 1995 when the Republic of Macedonia was admitted in this organisation, presented positive results from undertaken measures in development of tourism in the country and planned activities for this year.

Data show that number of tourists is increasing constantly, and by this the total number of tourists and nights spent, so the increase was 98% during the past eight years, and the total number of tourists marks growth of 40%. We succeeded to provide increase of income in foreign currency which amounted US$146 million in 2014 and records an increase by 7.25% compared to previous year, Neziri said.

He pointed out that 2.3 percent of overall investments in the country were invested in the tourism last year and the growth of investments is expected to increase by 10% this year.

Around 10.000 persons were employed in tourism last year, which is an increase of GDP by 1.9%. Together with activities connected to tourism additional 32.500 persons were employed last year in Macedonia.

He emphasised that all positive trends are result of numerous measures directed towards the promotion and support to tourism as well subsidizing of the foreign organized tourist turnover as well as the subsidizing of the air flights of the low-cost companies.

Neziri introduced Rifai with the planned preparation of new strategy for tourism development for the period 2016-2021 aimed at implementing new trends in tourism, tourist zones, activities emerging from 2015 Programme for Tourism Development as well as conference on wine tourism and regional conference on tourism hosted by Macedonia.

Secretary-general Taleb Rifai expressed his satisfaction from the results and plans for development of tourism in Macedonia.

All of this is very promising. Investments in tourism are large, as well as number of open jobs in this and other accompanying sectors. The establishment of free tourist zones is courageous move because as a country you are located in very active region from tourist aspect, Rifai said.

That’s why you will have our full support both from technical and political aspect anytime you need, he underlined.

You can utilize technical support to train personnel for your future activities and you will also receive our support for all messages you want to send to neighbours and the rest of the countries in the world, Rifai said.

During the visit to UNWTO Neziri also met with Isabel Garana, regional director for Europe, as well as with regional directors for market trends in tourism, sustainable development, technical cooperation, statistics and satellite tourism account.