Pandemia leaves northern Macedonia without tourists

Northern Macedonia is registering the most difficult tourist year because of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Ohrid and Struga, the two cities known for summer vacations -- which lie along Lake Ohrid -- face collapses as hotel facilities and gastronomia sector survive tourism. By mid - July they have not filled even 10 percent of their capacities, which is not remembered to have ever been recorded in these two popular tourist cities.

In 2019, more than 20,000 tourists have stayed from the Netherlands alone in Ohrid and Struga. In 2020, during the pandemic, this number has dropped to about 2,000 people, and this year their number is insignificant.

Unfortunately, this year all reservations have been canceled. The Dutch government has not allowed flights, so we won't have traditional tourists. We won't even have tourists from Poland after they even canceled our trips. This has influenced the Delta of Coronavius but also other factors. We hoped that this year's season will be better than last year's, but what it looks like will be even worse than the previous one. As long as you go along the lake and everything is clear, the beaches are almost empty”, says Ana Jancheva, manager at the “Drim” in Struga.

The State Statistics Ent, first period of pandemic, or in 2019, the number of tourists in the months of June and July was estimated at 120 thousand tourists, respectively. In the same period in 2020, the number of foreign tourists was about 5,000 in June and about 32,000 in July. The same situation is expected to be in June and July of this year.

Erhan Papranik, manager at the “Belgrade” in Struga, does not remember Struga was more abandoned than at this tourist season. He hopes that survivors will be found among exiles and weddings expected to be in greater number after the relief of the masses.

Tourists can say we don't have any. We expect only individual visits, very few. Organised tourists don't have, all reservations are canceled, they've been cancelled for the whole season, so we don't even expect them. So the only hope of this season remains the local tourists and exiles with weddings. These are the two expectations if they can save the <x0 tourist season, Papranik says.

That the situation is alarming, so does Leyla Gogova, manager at the Hotel “Metropol” in Ohrid.

We all expected this season to be better than the previous one. We had all the preparations to wait for guests both abroad and locally. But I must say that our expectations were not realized. The hotel is almost empty or will hardly have capacity for all to be satisfied with the” tourist season, Gogova says.

The managers of these hotels say they do not expect any state aid, not that they do not need, but do not see any government warning or readiness for new financial packages in aid to tourism.

From the government, they have not ruled out the possibility of a new assistance, waiting for the course of the tourist season and reports of this sector to see whether or not it needs assistance.

Last year, the government has helped the private sector, including tourism, with coverage of spending on employee salaries for two months, as well as sharing 100,000 coupons worth 200 euros for local tourism.