Municipal Level Technical Assistance Serbia

What: SW Associates was contracted by the USAID-funded MEGA program through DAI to assist with tourism development activities. Rapid assessments of existing municipal capacities and resources with regard to destination marketing, destination management, and designing tourist products in Zaječar, Novi Sad, Pecinci and Sombor. Through strategic planning sessions and SWOT analyses, we provided recommendations that further helped these communities advance their tourism sectors.

Tourism Experts Scott Wayne and Serbia-based Mladen Cvetanovic led the sessions and introduced a process of visitor surveys and workshops for these communities that included international and domestic visitor surveys in English and Serbian, which were conducted online in coordination with the municipal tourism offices and Local Economic Development offices.  The segment specific surveys – cultural tourism for Zaječar, bicycling for Sombor, Ecotourism for Pećinci and cruise visitors for Novi Sad – introduced stakeholders to the importance of ongoing surveys to improve their product offers and marketing efforts.

At the National Tourism Forum in Kapoanik, we helped launch the first ever survey of the country’s 100 local tourist offices, which provided a foundation for networking the offices, sharing best practices, and helping the National Tourism Organization with improving their research base – all essential for improving Serbia’s tourism and competitive position.

USAID Serbia produced a “Success Story” about their work. to read more, click here.

Video summary of part of our work 

Video brief mentioning our work in Serbia for tourism development. Click here.