The tourist season in the once popular among Russians Montenegro in 2022 failed. Beaches and nightclubs are empty, while tour desks and souvenir shops are suffering record losses.
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According to local residents, even in 1999, when NATO bombs rained down on the territory of present-day Montenegro, and at that time Yugoslavia, there were more Russian tourists.
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Now, at the height of the tourist season, the sunbeds in the resorts of Montenegro are empty, you no longer have to book tables in restaurants, and the owners of nightclubs are begging vacationers to go to the dance floor. This was not even during the bombing.
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This situation is due to the policy of the Montenegrin government towards the Russian Federation, from where planes full of generous tourists arrived. After all, air communication with Russia is prohibited, and the Montenegrin authorities are in full solidarity with the US and EU sanctions against the Russian Federation.
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As the local owner of a souvenir shop near Budva, Nikola, explained, now Ukrainians are coming to Montenegro. But their number is incomparable with the number of Russian tourists who vacationed in Montenegrin resorts in pre-Covid times. Yes, and the inhabitants of Ukraine arrived rather not for the purposes of tourism, but to hide and wait out difficult times in their country. Therefore, representatives of the tourism business of Montenegro do not consider Ukrainians to be tourists.
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It is worth noting that the daily earnings of the owners of souvenir shops have decreased by 50%, and tour agencies are completely close to ruin. Montenegrins consider the current tourist season a complete fiasco and hope for an improvement in the situation in October-November.
