People who were strongly advocating for the reopening of borders over the summer in order to save Montenegro’s tourism season most often mentioned the example of Croatia and how they did well, thus generating good revenues. However, after the data on the hospitality industry facing wipeout in Croatia, that is, the fact that even 41 per cent of hotels were locked during summer, a wave of euphoria has faded soon, reported Dnevne Novine daily.
Montenegro, on the other hand, accepted reality entirely. The health of citizens remains its priority even at the expense of the economy. Director of the National Tourism Organization, Ms Željka Radak Kukavičić, best described the sudden circumstances that our country had to cope with.
“It’s unrealistic to talk about good or bad season and compare it with last year’s one amid the coronavirus crisis. Even the slightest progress or generated revenue represents a success having in mind the current circumstances,” she noted.
The ‘Summer at Home’ campaign, launched by the National Tourism Organization, was an excellent response to the coronavirus crisis. Domestic tourists could take advantage of hotels in Montenegro for cheap deals. Was it enough to save the season? No, but we have to be proud of every euro that a domestic tourist spent during the coronavirus crisis.
Here we should come back to the story of Croatia, which, alongside Montenegro, is a place that tourists like to visit for years on end. Expectations of Croats were obviously too high, as first figures of the analysis of hotel businesses for the period January-August say that financial results of this sector are likely to be disastrous.
The hotel sector, according to the analysis, lost a total of 72 per cent of revenues compared to the same period last year.
And not only the region faces these problems. A massive drop in the international tourism turnover, ranging from 60 per cent to 80 per cent, has been recorded, whereas the Mediterranean region, especially Southern part, marked the largest drop. Figures say that nearly 1.2 billion of tourism turnover will be lost in 2020 and over 1.3 billion dollars of revenues from the international tourism.
