Representatives of the chamber said that Montenegro’s advantage compared to other tourist destinations was in the variety of its offer in a small area.
“In addition, Montenegro is a safe country, with a law percentage of crime. The World Tourism Organisation emphasises it as a positive example of a destination that achieves rapid development”, the chamber representatives told the Mina-business news agency.
They stated that the rise of terrorism in the world influences tourists’ decisions when choosing a holiday destination and that they opt for safe and secure places, such as Montenegro and the region.
“For the same reason, it is expected that there is a decrease in tourist arrivals in the attractive tourist destinations that have suffered terrorist attacks”, the chamber stated.
As it added, Montenegro has the ability and capacity to generate much higher tourism revenues than it currently does.
“Last year, the arrival of 1.7 million tourists was registered and the total revenue of about €830m was achieved. The possibilities are much higher, which does not have to be reflected in a larger number of arrivals, but in the quality of the offer and higher tourist spending”, the chamber explained.
According to them, the tourists who mainly use vacation rentals have lower power consumption on a daily basis, indicating that an increase in the number of overnight stays is not accompanied by total revenues growth.
“Three to five stars hotels account for 67% of the total number of hotel beds. With regard to the territorial limits of Montenegro, it is necessary to create conditions for structural changes in accommodation facilities, ie to modernise and turn the existing lower category hotels into a higher category hotels”, the chamber noted.
It also reminded that tourism and agriculture were complementary branches.
According to it, placement of local products through tourism demand is so-called “exporting at the doorstep”, which involves the sale of domestic products in the domestic market through the tourism demand.
“The tourism industry is constantly committed to creating an environment in Montenegro in which domestic labour force will have a priority in employment. It is necessary to strengthen cooperation between the tourism industry and the education system, to educate personnel, since regular programmes offers education which is often inadequate for the real needs of the economy”, the chamber assessed, adding that this could be a way to reduce unemployment rate in the country.
When it comes to the value of investments in luxury tourism, the chamber stated that in the last four years there has been a growth recorded – the investments have amounted to about €200m. The development of new high-quality accommodation and increasing the share of the total capacity of the hotel is the main goal, which will allow increasing the quality of tourism.
