Numerous natural, cultural, and historical beauties of the royal city of Jajce, attractive contents and manifestations attract a large number of tourists every year. The year 2022, according to the indicators, exceeded by 17 percent the record year 2019, when around 120,000 tourists visited Jajce. Last year, about 100,000 visits were registered at the Pliva Waterfall alone.
Cultural and tourist events marked the summer of 2022. Jajce opened its gates and was a city of artists and a center of cultural events in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Cultural events were numerous, many actors and theater artists visited the city, writers, painters, musicians, and film workers as well. Almost 300,000 BAM have been set aside for the improvement of the tourist offer, co-financing of projects and manifestations of tourism development and investment in tourist infrastructure and co-financing of cultural content.
Numerous titles
In addition, during the last year, Jajce won several valuable and prestigious titles, which are proof of how much effort this city invests in improving the tourist offer. Putni Kofer, a specialized regional travel portal, has chosen the 20 most beautiful small towns in the world to visit in 2023, and Jajce was among them. Among the cities in Japan, China, Europe and all the way to the United States of America, Jajce is mentioned as one of the most interesting places to visit in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Another valuable recognition came from the Chamber of Economy of the Federation of BiH, which awarded Jajce the “Star of BiH Tourism” award for International Jumps from the Waterfall in Jajce. These awards are given to the best representatives of the tourism industry whose achievements and results have helped in development of this sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Moreover, Jajce won the title of top destination in Central Bosnia Canton with the largest number of tourist arrivals.
– Our wish is for the royal city to show all its historical, but also natural and cultural beauties and to attract as many domestic as well as foreign tourists, which we have succeeded. Proof of this is that Jajce a great number of tourists visited Jajce in 2022 – Edin Hozan, the mayor of Jajce Municipality, pointed out.
The event “Experience the summer in Jajce 2022” lasted for three months and was implemented with the support of the Municipality of Jajce, the organizer of the activity was the “Agency for Cultural-Historical and Natural Heritage and Development of Tourist Potentials of the City of Jajce”, and cooperation in the project was provided by the Sarajevo Film Festival Directorate, the “Vacation in BiH” initiative and USAID through the Tourism project.
Jamie Jones, a world DJ star, opened the event. Millions of people around the world watched the event in a beautiful setting under the Pliva Waterfall, which was the biggest worldwide promotion of the city via a streaming platform. This spectacular performance was realized in cooperation with partners from Paris, the Circle agency, which searches for unusual locations for concerts all over the world, and Jajce, after Dubrovnik, was the second city in the Balkans where such a concert was held.
The Moon Jun Festival, the first of its kind in the world, brought together numerous world names of jazz music from the USA, Germany, Italy and Indonesia, and concerts were held at attractive locations in the city, from the Catacomb plateau to the Pliva Waterfall.
In addition to the improvement of the tourist offer, in the past year they invested in numerous other projects in Jajce in order to create the best possible environment for life and the arrangement of the city and municipality. This includes ten million marks investments in rehabilitation and reconstruction of city streets, local roads and bridges, rehabilitation and reconstruction of public lighting, water supply and sewerage, reconstruction and construction of sports infrastructure, cleaning and maintenance of green areas and roads, construction and rehabilitation of buildings of importance to the community, creation of spatial planning documentation.
Caring for young people
The project “Best business ideas for young people” has been implemented by the municipality of Jajce for the seventh year and it aims at encouraging young people to start or develop their own business through co-financing.
– In this way, we want to encourage young people not to leave their city and their country – says Hozan.
In 2022, the municipality of Jajce recognized good business ideas and supported young women and men from Jajce through grants in the amount of 10,000 BAM per user. 40,000 has been set aside for the best business ideas in the field of cardboard packaging production, development of tourism through accommodation in rural areas, car detailing and service for the maintenance of water and sewage installations.
In seven years, the Municipality of Jajce allocated 550,000 through this project and supported 71 ideas for starting businesses of young men and women from Jajce. This is one of the few municipalities in BiH that in this way encourages young people to dare and start their own business.
The Jajce Business Center is a project created in 2016 that offers young people education and improvement of business ideas and skills and provides assistance in establishing a small business. The Municipality of Jajce gave and equipped the premises in the Municipality building, and in 2022 allocated 20,000 for the operation of the Business Center.
On February 22, Jajce celebrated the Municipality Day. Jajce is mentioned for the first time in the Charter from the Dubrovnik archives on this very date in the distant 1396, and by the decision of the Jajce Municipal Council from 2014, that date was declared the Day of the Municipality of Jajce.
– I can freely say that we are proud of our ancestors and all those who in any way carved themselves into the history of the royal city. Jajce is a city with a lot of diversity, multi-ethnicity, cultural and historical monuments, and all of this is testimony to an extraordinary past. The differences between us in Jajce are the least noticeable and that is what makes us the heart of our beautiful homeland of Bosnia and Herzegovina – says Hozan.