Landlocked Serbia uses nature to woo tourists

“I told myself it would be good to profit from what we have: the Danube river, the Fruska Gora hills and their pristine nature,” the dynamic 51-year old told AFP.

Together with a business partner he turned a traditional Vojvodina farmhouse into a rural inn in the picturesque village of Cerevic, on the north side of Fruska Gora where the hills meet the banks of the Danube.

With tourism heavyweights Croatia and Montenegro and their sun-kissed Adriatic coast just next door, landlocked Serbia is bidding to turn its vast, unspoiled countryside into an asset for green tourism.

The industry is still a fledgling: last year revenues from tourism made up barely 2.5 percent of Serbia's gross domestic product, according to the economy ministry.

But spurred on by the success of countries like Hungary, Bulgaria or Romania, Serbia has high hopes for the sector, and its trade and tourism ministry aims to establish a viable market for nature tourism by 2015.

Guests staying at Simic's inn, which opened in 2008 with 40 beds, can go hiking, visit the area's famous Orthodox monasteries, take a boat trip on the river or simply relax with a drink in the farmhouse's calm gardens.

Octogenarian Ratko Tatalovic came to Cerevic to beat the summer heat in Serbia's capital Belgrade.

“The beauty of our country deserves to be highlighted, and this kind of tourism is an excellent way to do it,” he said.

Jagoda Jovicevic, of the government's tourism organization TOS, says “the state is actively supporting the development of rural tourism and has been giving subsidies and loans with favorable conditions for four years now.”

She says the country is managing to transform its lack of industrial development into an economic advantage.

“We are turning something around that used to be considered a failing.”

Simic is now one of around 4,000 people working in the growing sector, which so far counts some 5,000 tourist beds.

The economic downturn gave rural tourism an added boost, since many young people were forced to move back from the big cities to their native villages — where tourism suddenly seemed a way out, Jovicevic said.

“They used what they had at their disposal. The houses — which do often have to be refurbished — and the untouched natural beauty that surrounds them,” she said.

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