Soon in Pescara
B&H Airlines will commence scheduled charter flights from Sarajevo via Mostar to Pescara in Italy. The service will begin next Saturday, on September 17. Flights will operate with an ATR72 with the departure times from Sarajevo alternating between 13.00 one week and 13.45 the other. A total of 7 flights are planned to be operated, with the last service taking place on October 29. The flights are being subsidised by the local authorities in Mostar and Pescara.All sides participating in this project are hoping to attract Christian pilgrims from Italy visiting Medjugorje in Bosnia and Herzegovina. B&H Airlines should make good money from the service as all seats on the aircraft will be pre-booked by a tour operator. Pescara is located on Italy's eastern coast, some 180 kilometres from the capital Rome.
B&H Airlines has attempted several times to operate flights out of secondary airports in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 2008 and 2009 the airline commenced flights from Mostar to Istanbul and Stuttgart but failed to attract any interest. Similarly, it operated out of Tuzla to Frankfurt in 2009 and from Banja Luka to Istanbul and Frankfurt in 2008 and 2010 respectively, with little success.
Bosnia needs to realise they will never attract many people there. Only in the summer when the Diaspora comes back home, but for the rest..
ReplyDeleteWhat makes you think that Ved? In the first 8 months Bosnia has had half a million foreign tourists, with a double-digit growth every year.
ReplyDelete''In 2010 Bosnia-Herzegovina had 656.333 tourists and 1.416.691 overnight stays which is an 11,7% increase from 2009. 54,5 % of the tourists came from foreign countries.''
ReplyDelete''The major sending countries in 2010 have been Serbia (14,7%), Croatia (13,6%), Slovenia (8,4%), Poland (7,1%), Italy (6,4%) and Turkey (5,9%).''
From these numbers you can deduce that BH was visited by 354.000 thousand 'foreigners' of which over 100.000 come from ex-Yu neighboring countries. How
How many of these are really tourists and how many are members of diaspora and/or friends?
Also, the average stay was 3 days.
I am not deriding Bosnian tourism, I am just saying that the numbers can be interpreted in various ways.
The bottom line for Bosnian aviation industry is how many Bosnians can afford to travel on regular basis and how easy/difficult it is to get a visa.
What can be done to improve this situation?
besides Međugorje and perhaps Sarajevo for the festival in July, there really isn't that much. afterall BiH doesn't even function properly as a country, has negative PR + not to mention it takes days to get there (lack of infrastructure etc.).
ReplyDeleteOnce I used services of Globtour traveling from Budva to Zagreb. NEVER again. No stopping but for drivers to smoke a cigarette or change buses. We stopped at Međugorje and at a place that was no near restroom, nor shop. After they had their cigarette, they rushed us back in - no time to even walk to a store and get a bottle of water, not to mention we had to bumpo into some restaurant to get to a rest room.
And on top of all this behavior, the drivers stopped twice on some side parking spot in the middle of nowhere to load some "stuff" from a private car - smuggling cigarettes.
NOt to mention the overall rudness of the bus driver and his assistant - never seen this ever.
I wrote all this to Globtour - never received a response.
Bosnian, sorry to break it to you, but BiH has long way to go to attract more people.
And this is coming not from a western foreigner, but a croatian who doesn't have that much of an expectation of service.
To me, as a tourist, I transfered this information to at least 100 people I know. I am sure I was not the only one with a experience of this kind.
To last anonymous:
ReplyDeleteNo need for that, I suppose I know the situation in my own country, right?
I dont see what your experience with Globtour, one tourist and bus company from Medjugorje, on their route from Zagreb (Croatia) to Budva (Montenegro), has to do with Bosnia and its tourism?!
I can name the same experiences with Cazma Trans, Croatia Bus, Pepeks, and others. And not focusing only on tour operators, but also on local hotels and apartement rentals at the coast, and bad experiences with them. I mean, I was hit with a glass bottle in Vodice on purpose by local Croatians, so no need to raise yourself above others, we are all Balkans in the end, with the same mentality. ;)
You also forgot Mostar and Neum, and also Sarajevo which doesnt attract tourists during July, but whole year round.
So dont you worry for Bosnian tourism, it is at least on the same level of the one in the neighboring countries (excluding Croatia due to its coast), the number say it all. ;)
ok Bosnian. Well, Vodice - fine. Out of all places you pick the one where people eat each other :)
ReplyDeleteOther than that, the rest of the country is much better (excluding back of Zadar area too)
I think all Balkans have ways to go, but in terms of tourism - in average there are places that need a bit longer ways to go :)
peace out.