INTRODUCING DIGITAL SKILLS TO TOURISM ENTERPRISES FROM SERBIA, MONTENEGRO, AND BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
The coronavirus pandemic had a significant impact on international travel, essentially rendering passports useless. However, after several COVID-19 waves and lockdowns, the desire to travel and escape has never been stronger, and many populations chose and are still choosing to turn inwards (due to travel restrictions) and travel in their own countries. That trend has posed many questions for tourists and the tourism sector alike. Questions on accommodations made many tourists rely on social networks, recommendations from friends and acquaintances, reviews on “Booking” and “Airbnb,” and various forums. However, tourists’ reliance on digital platforms to look for accommodation, events, and experiences packages made it so that organizations without a digital presence went unnoticed.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the sector faced economic hardship and were forced to adapt to an ever-growing online market and increasing their presence, visibility, and efficiency in digital platforms.
The D-Tour project, implemented by ICT Hub from Serbia through a grant from the USAID Economic Development, Governance, and Enterprise Growth (EDGE) Project, has successfully helped to improve digital skills of small tourism service providers in Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) for almost a year.
The first step in the project was to organize nine online digital tools/skills workshops for over 800 attendees from tourism SMEs. Later, in three partnering countries (Serbia, BiH, and Montenegro), ICT Hub organized three digital academies with 15 students from tourism SMEs from each country, which included trainings on best online business practices, identifying user profiles, and increasing brand recognition and appeal. These two elements of the project worked together to provide companies with mitigation and adaptation resources/skills required to face the devastating consequences the COVID-19 pandemic had on the tourism sector and on their businesses. This video covers some of the highlights of this activity.
Some of the small tourism enterprises supported through those activities were start-ups, while some were experienced in the sector. Although there is profound difficulty in starting a business, maintaining one particularly during the pandemic, is perhaps an even greater challenge. Diana Mehičić’s story is only one of the several featured in the D-Tour publication, which highlights the enthusiasm and readiness for change and innovation that the tourism sector has displayed during the pandemic.
Diana is a veteran in the tourism sector and is the current owner of the “Dar Prirode” agency in BiH. She had her start in the sector in 1996. She has since expanded her knowledge of and reach in the sector and is currently working on expanding her business into Montenegro.
When it comes to using digital tools, Diana emphasizes the dynamic and ever-changing nature of tourism advertising. She explained that “before, the catalog was enough. Reservations used to be made via telegram, then by fax, and now by e-mail and online. Everything is progressing. I don’t print the catalog anymore. Now I put everything online. Advertising is vital in every business, maybe even more in tourism, and learning about digital tools is beneficial. That’s why I say, ‘the internet is a great TV where you can see and find everything, and what you don’t know, Google knows.’”
Diana has also shared her plans for the future, saying that she is now excited to work on programs that bind the three countries. She stated, “I think that rural, eco, and adventure tourism are the future of the Balkans. This job requires attention to detail, and to satisfy a guest, you have to pay attention to them,” she points out.
Another participant, Marina Šćepanović from Congress Travel, Montenegro, shared her experience with the digital academy, saying that the “lectures on creating content on social networks and website analysis were especially useful. We have already successfully used a couple of tricks I learned at the Academy when posting on social media networks for our agency. We have dealt in detail with the website analysis, and we have identified a couple of segments that we want to improve in the future. Also, we have expanded which social media tools we use to improve the visuals and make needed changes to the website.”
The stories above all reflect the dynamic and changing nature of the sector, and highlight the adaptation that has been required of the sector in the last couple of years, but particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the testimonies point out, developing digital transformation skills and adopting new online tools is the way forward for tourism SMEs in the Balkans. However, not all SMEs have had the opportunity to attend trainings on digitalization, and additional support on digital transitions and skills is still required in order to allow the sector to not only survive, but to thrive during the pandemic and in the coming years.
