Željka Radak-Kukavičić, director of the National Tourism Organization in Montenegro, NTO, says the summer season would be successful not only in the Montenegrin coast but in north of the country as well. “The number of international tourists will rise over the course of the entire year,” she told Dnevne Novine daily.
She also mentioned official data of the Statistical Office of Montenegro, MONSTAT, which show that the number of tourists in our country increased by almost 20% over the past five months, compared to the same period last year.
“Apart from the coastal cities, we must say we’re quite pleased with the number of visitors to the north of the state. 90% of hotel capacities in Kolašin are booked already, whereas Žabljak records 60% hotel occupancy rate. We expect to see an influx of visitors in the next few days,” said Radak-Kukavičić.
This year’s summer tourist season records the significant growth when it comes to financial indicators as well. According to the data of the Central Bank of Montenegro, in the first quarter of 2018, our country generated 18.5% of income compared to the last year’s statistics, noted Radak-Kukavičić.
She also reminded of the fact that the Airport in Tivat is now connected with 47 world destinations and the one in Podgorica with 39 of them, which certainly represents one of the key factors for opening our market and more diverse tourist structure,” Radak-Kukavičić underlined.
As for the tourists coming from China, she added that the NTO had a range of activities with the aim to promote Montenegrin tourism in China’s market. Montenegro’s tourist numbers from China rose significantly over the past few years: “Tourists from China usually travel during the first week of May, then also from May to October when they travel for business and from July to August –for leisure. They prefer guided tours, usually spend a lot of money and mostly stay up to 4 days in the European cities. Montenegro still has to align its offer with the needs of Chinese tourists. When saying this, I mean on the need for greater number of Chinese restaurants, ensuring greater number of guided tours in Chinese, organizing shopping tours of higher quality…Montenegro would also need to introduce usage of Chinese credit cards, such as UnionPay, AliPay or WeChatPay,” concluded she.
