01 January 2018 - More than 2,1 million tourists came to Montenegro in 2018, with the total profit higher than 1 billion EUR in the first nine months. There have been over 12 and a half million of overnights. The year 2018 was definitely an impressive year, said the Minister of Sustainable Development and Tourism, Pavle Radulović.
“Both pre and post season in 2018 was record. Another impressive fact is that that for the first time in the history of Montenegro, there were million tourists in Montenegrin hotels,” said Radulović.
Taking into consideration the hotels that are being constructed or those that have been planned, we can expect significant expansion of the capacities of high-quality accommodation.
“We are going to keep up with the work on achieving our strategic objective in tourism, and that is making Montenegro high-quality tourism destination. Such results are encouraging and make us happy, but they also oblige us to commit so that trend of growth and progress in tourism continues,” said Radulović.
He points out that Montenegrin winter centers are competitive with the countries from the region thanks to the diversity of offer, quality and prices.
“When it comes to Kolašin, I am sure that, with the development of ski centers and other amenities, it can attract a much higher number of tourists. Also, I think that Kolašin and Žabljak should not be competitive with one another, but with other regional centers. It is important to point out that infrastructure in the mountains is used during summer too. We are continuously investing in winter centers because that way we will provide promotion of different segments of tourism offer, extend the season in the northern part of our state and improve accommodation capacities. All this will be followed by connection with other relevant economic areas, and that will create new jobs,” said Radulović.
As Radulović states, total amount of investments in development and tourism projects is around 214 million EUR.
Asked what the key amendments of the existing Law on on tourism are, Radulović explained that one of the key objectives of that Law was minimizing all forms of the grey zone in tourism, along with raising the level of consumers protection.
“Although full controls have been carried out successfully during the season, the practice has shown that it is necessary to amend specific segments so that the Law can be applied more easily. The domain of tourism and hotel industry is very complex, and it is directly or indirectly related to other domains. That is why we had to amend specific items and define them more clearly,” explained Radulović.
One of the challenges tourism industry is faced with is the lack of staff.
“The highest deficit refers to the first and the second education level, where the demand exceeds the supply by even up to 40%. Increase in accommodation capacities and diversification of the offer in tourism require new staff and, in that context, there is training for professional education and acquiring qualifications that will satisfy specific requirements and types of offer in the tourism sector. In the forthcoming period, we will be working on improving the image of professional occupations via some promotional campaigns,” says Radulović.
Source: Cafe del Montenegro
