Skopje, 26 August 2022 (MIA) - Over 3.2 million nights spent and more than 430 million dollars in influx from the tourism industry is the goal and the mission of the Agency for Promotion and Support of Tourism in 2023. The Agency has announced it will launch many new projects, a national campaign on Youtube and Google, tourist branding of the country as a destination, road signs for tourist attractions, branding of border crossings, digitalization as well as the establishment of E-tourism platform. Efforts are made to create a new tourism concept with the Agency transforming into a national tourist organization and creating conditions to treat tourism the same as in the Open Balkan countries and Europe - at ministerial level with strengthened authority in forming tourist inspection and tourist police, revealed the Agency's director, Ljupcho Janevski. According to him, the reorganization will allow legislation to be improved and to be competitive with the Open Balkan countries, which creates a market of 11 million domestic tourists. "Tourism knows no territorial borders, only destinations that span as far as the tourists have interest to travel and explore. The Open Balkan concept offers open opportunities for all the countries sharing the economic vision that will create a competitive destination in many aspects in the tourism industry. While building bridges with the region for faster travel through the so called green zones, we should start consider new investments, technologies and digitization, promotional activities and reducing seasonality," said Janevski. Referring to the planned projects, aimed at developing rural tourism, the director named "50 Villages, 50 Stories", "5 routes for religious tourism", and "Explore Macedonian Rural Treasure" as being key projects. Commenting on current developments and ongoing crises, Janevski said that tourism should recover in the "green". "It is necessary to use renewable energy sources and protect the environment in order to develop sustainable forms of tourism" he underlined. The E-tourism platform, Janevski explained, includes an information system for digitization to connect the entire tourism and hospitality sector as well as public and state institutions in the country. "Now's our era, the era of Macedonian tourism and its sustainability," the director stressed. The tourism industry estimates four million spent nights and a foreign currency influx of $500 million by 2025.