New strategic cycle in the Serbian trade and tourism development

Abstract

Trade and tourism, as significant areas of the service sector in Serbia are entering a new development cycle. In fact, in commerce as well as in tourism, previously adopted strategic documents expire. This creates a need to provide new development strategies for the coming development period in order to coordinate and guide the efforts of the public and private sectors. In both cases, a similar set of questions arises: what has been achieved that was planned in the previously adopted strategies, what is still very relevant and whether it is the necessary to make radical shifts or only purifying, complement and update of the existing strategic documents is acceptable. The macroeconomic environment is not favorable neither for tourism nor commerce. However, at least when it comes to tourism, global trends suggest the continual growth of demand for tourist services so it can be expected from Serbian tourism to grab some effects of this global positive trend. This paper specifically examines unrealized projects in both areas and investigates the causes of these failures. The aim is to give some recommendations in conclusion. One option is a possible change of attitude, if the strategic goals were wrong. Another possibility is to change the ways of solving problems and the realization of the project, if the attitudes remain the same, but the way of implementation proved to be ineffective. In the conclusion, it was argued that, so far used strategic documents were basically correct and that the new document should bring updated suggestions on how to start and develop tourism and trade in Serbia more successfully, in the future.