Skopje, 25 March 2022 (MIA) - This tourist year will be critical, risky and uncertain. We have already lost the Russian, Ukrainian and Polish markets, the groups of our traditional visitors from Belgium and the Netherlands have been reduced, and a number of arrangements have been canceled or, they could still happen, but there’s no guarantee for it, says the business sector from the Association of Hospitality and Tourism Chamber of North Macedonia. The Association said at Friday's press briefing that the situation is catastrophic, not only because of the current pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but also because of the "messy” things we’ve got going on locally. They are worried, as they said, that if nothing is done urgently, we will miss not only this year, but 2023 as well. “We are convincingly the worst in the region, our warnings for the decline of 60 percent in 2021 compared to 2019, before the pandemic, came true. It is necessary for the state to create conditions for tourism, and for the institutions to do their job. The Tourism Council, which has been "out of work" for 15 months, should start functioning and finally the Tourism Committee, which was established by an official government decision in November 2020, should be put into operation,” the Association reacted adding that Macedonian tourism has literally not moved an inch from its position in 2020. According to the business sector, the treatment of tourism is reduced to "sightseeing" and "beauties of nature". “The sector is not recognized as an economic system. Our approach is catastrophic. For now, the activities are not serious and they represent a kind of screen or simulation of what is actually happening. What kind of marketing are we talking about if we still do not know the profile of domestic and foreign tourists? We do not have a target, but we do promotions. Based on what? And when it comes to earned income, it should be by code of activity, because everything else is manipulation. The records are also messy. For example, 90 national restaurants have been registered, and there are 1,400 in the "Golden Book",” the Association pointed out, which sent a total of 65 proposals to the Agency for Support and Promotion of Tourism almost a year ago, but so far has not received any response. The Association pointed out that in 2019 the income from tourism was around EUR 480 million, and according to APSP, we now have three percent less income with 60 percent less foreign tourists and five percent fewer domestic tourists. “This is nonsense. The claims of the Agency that we will replace the Ukrainian tourists with Turkish ones, as well as that we will have one million Bulgarian tourists are also meaningless. Otherwise, according to data from the Ministry of Economy and the Government, we have 50 hotels less categorized in 2020 and 2021 compared to 2018 and 2019 and 47 travel agencies who carry A-type licenses less, or in other words, out of a total of 180 hotels, now we have 130, and out of 177 agencies we have about 140 with A-licenses,” the Association said. dk/ba/