Graduates Third Belgrade high school they should have gone to Vienna, Prague and Budapest, six nights. The price is 95.900 dinars per student. And that was the only offer at the first moment.
After that, at the end of December, a new offer was submitted that did not include Prague, but only Vienna and Budapest - for 73.000 dinars.
Because of such a price, graduates of the Third Belgrade High School do not go on the graduation excursion.
Other examples also speak in favor of the fact that the prices of excursions are high, so one night for a high school student in Eastern Serbia costs 18.000 dinars.
Why are excursions so expensive? Who dictates the excursion program and who sets the prices?
Dragan Subotić from the Association of Travel Agencies and Tourist Workers of Serbia told "Vreme" that the high prices were caused by price increases on the European market. After the pandemic, almost all destinations in Europe have gone up in price by at least 60 percent, and in Italy even up to 100 percent, claims Subotic.
He cites the energy crisis and the price of fuel as another reason. "The tourist agency makes an offer only at the request of the school because it is the school that creates the travel program," Subotić points out.
Photo: Tanjug/Dušan Aničić
The program is proposed by schools
Article six of the Rulebook on the organization and implementation of field trips in high school stipulates that the school's departmental and professional councils propose the field trip program, which they submit to the teacher's council.
"Student excursions are exclusively carried out according to the regulations of the Ministry of Education in hotels with a minimum of three stars and half-board service. "Dinners in hotels are significantly expensive, almost like a one-night stay with breakfast," says Subotic.
He further states that conducting field trips also involves hiring a doctor, and professors' per diems, which are regulated by the school's regulations.
It explains that the calculation of individual trips is in contrast to the calculations for excursions. "The bottom line is that the price factors have been increasing month by month in recent years," says our interlocutor.
How is it in Europe?
Subotic reminds that excursions in European Union countries are organized completely differently, and those countries have a significantly higher standard of living.
However, he says, Italians, French or Germans, when they go on excursions, have no problem sleeping in boarding houses in eight-bed rooms.
"During the former Yugoslavia, it was the same. Excursions were organized exclusively in the facilities intended for that, and they were multi-bed rooms, uncategorized facilities, not three or four star hotels in the center of Prague or Rome," he says.
He adds that this is a big difference and that, for example, German students and their teacher go on an excursion by train without any problems.
