Tourism Minister Gari Cappelli said on Friday that investments of more than one billion euros were expected in the tourism sector this year but that investments alone, without quality workers, could not enhance the quality of tourism services.
Speaking at the opening of the "Days of Tourism Jobs" event, held as part of a regional labour market conference for Slavonia, Baranja and Srijem in Osijek, Cappelli said that investments in tourism had grown by 55% in the last three years and that the increased capacity required quality labour.
Cappelli believes that most workers would be secured through competence centres, additional training and scholarships as well as by the private sector but that greater capacity required additional labour, which was why some of the workers would have to be imported.
He said that this year around 150,000 people would be working in the tourism sector.
The minister recalled that salaries in the tourism and catering industry had grown by around 13% in the last three years while before they had not increased by more than 3-5%, calling on employers to be fair to their employees and reward them adequately.
Cappelli announced that the government would continue working on reducing taxes, including VAT, which has been lowered to 13% for the restaurant sector.
"Next year we will reduce VAT to 10% and I hope for an even better season," he said.
(Hina)
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