Serbia considered shutting down Booking app

The minister of tourism of Serbia, Husein Memic, stated on Friday that there was plenty of shadow economy in tourism, which was constantly developing and bringing more and more FX inflow, and that the biggest problem were the users of private accommodation and the foreign platforms which operated in the country illegally.

At the session of the Coordination Body for Suppression of Shadow Economy of the Government of Serbia, Memic said that, in the preceding two months, around 7,000 inspections had been carried out and that it was considerable progress compared to an earlier period, but added that it was difficult to achieve results, primarily due to the illegal advertising of the foreign platforms which operated in the country illegally.

– We have talked to the booking.com platform, which has an office in Croatia. They have come over here and we have made some suggestions about how things should be done. We have also talked about this at some other foreign addresses, we even thought that shutting down booking.com would be a good solution, as some countries had already done, but experts told us it was impossible, as they would always found a way to reach our citizens – he said.

He said that, regarding that, a memo would be sent to the European Commission and that he hoped that they would manage to talk to them.

Ministarstvo turizma i omladine Republike Srbije

Booking

Husein Memić

Coordination Body for Suppression of Shadow Economy of the Government of Serbia