Visit-Montenegro.com: August will compensate for the bad start of the season

Podgorica – Bad start of the tourism season which was evident in the first six months can be improved in the peak of the season, and in the Ministry of Tourism it was announced that even good post season is expected. During the press conference held yesterday, Tourism Minister Predrag Nenezic said that until the end of July Montenegro had five percent drop in the number of tourists over the same period last year, and six percent drop in total overnight stays.

The Ministry announced that there are 581,72 thousand guests staying in Montenegro, who made 3,47 million overnight stays. As they said, the minuses registered in the first half of the year, when there were seven percent less tourist, and less then nine percent overnight stays, can be corrected with the increase of the number of visitors in the second half of July. They announced that, the records for the first seven months were received from Monstat, while the figures for July were prepared by Tourism inspection, but added that “they can not be worse from those which Monstat will announce later on.”

- We are sure that after August we will be able to commend that the minus is even smaller. Announcements for September and October are very optimistic, but they are not enough for a final forecast – Nenezic said.
He emphasized that the season is being carried out according to the Governments plans, and, that it is “the result of the efforts we put while preparing the season”.

- This year we have decided that Montenegro should be visited by as much tourists as possible, and make it attractive in the region and on the international market. It was especially hard to deal with the competition – he said and added that financial economic crisis has “partly” slowed down Montenegro, but “not as much as it was thought it will”.

- We were not prepared enough for some bigger project, and were missing spatial planning documentation, but we are rapidly preparing in order to start the implementation of some important projects during this year – he announced.

Nenezic said that the season was progressing without bigger problems, the accommodations improved, 38 new hotels with more then 2.500 beds were opened, but also the private accommodation was upgraded.

Minister said that Zabljak is “packed” with tourists, and that the figures about electricity and food consumption and mobile line usage, are showing that this town has never had more tourists and that due to the bad weather conditions the season arrived pretty late.

The director of the National Tourism Organization, Sasa Radovic said that the most visited towns currently are Budva, Herceg Novi and Ulcinj, and in respect to the last year the number of tourist decreased in Bar, Kotor and Tivat.
Radovic said that this organization is checking “the level of satisfaction” of the guests who are staying in Montenegro.

- We conduct visitor’s survey, and we also have information call-centre available 24 hours a day, which has around 30 calls a day. The complains are mostly related to noise, traffic jams, crowded parking lots, and tourists praise eventful cultural and entertainment programme – Radovic said, adding that he’s hoping that Montenegro will be also next year a “hit destination”.

By M.C.