For some time, the so-called active vacation has been very popular in the world of tourism, and mountaineering, with all that the sport entails, is also part of such a vacation. Consequently, the biggest tourist organizations highlight vacation destinations which promote such a tourist trend. As a country that seeks to play a significant role on the European tourist map and declaratively opts for sustainable or eco-tourism, Montenegro must keep up with trends. In this context, there was also a recent visit of fifty Greek mountaineers who spent ten days visiting Boka Bay, Njeguši and Durmitor, as an overture to the “Mountaineering and Tourism” consultation organised by the Mountaineering Association of Montenegro at the initiative of PD Subra. The goal of this consultation is that the tourism industry of Montenegro includes, in its offer, the wonderful natural resources that our country has, which are, fortunately, relatively preserved and can be and are one of the main attractions. This is confirmed by the impressions of mountaineers from Greece who were actually the first tourists of their kind to come to Montenegro in an organized manner. We will try to use what we have with the help of tourist representatives and to combine pleasant and useful, and that is what we presented at this gathering.
“Having in mind the expertise of the participants in
this consultation and the preliminary agreements that have been reached, there
is a good chance that some plans will be realized soon, but we will try to do
so at the level of the whole country and on a much larger scale,” said
Brano Perović , president of the Mountaineering Association of Montenegro,
adding that the organization has already prepared a Mountain Guide through
Montenegro that will soon come out of the press, which covers all the important
mountains of our country and will be an exceptional manual for both local
nature lovers and all tourists.
“In addition, the Mountaineering Association of
Montenegro is gradually becoming involved, together with Zeleni, in the concept
of sustainable development proposed by the UNDP in Montenegro and will soon be
discussed at the highest levels in the country, and our participation is not
only verbal, but also through a concrete project – 7 days in the Montenegrin
mountains, which starts on the Kučka mountains and ends on Žabljak. Currently,
one of the countries that is talked about a lot is Costa Rica, which accepted
and implemented the project of sustainable development, i.e. tourism, which
secured it a very good income, “Perovic concluded. Of course, in order for
this initiative and idea to be fully implemented, in addition to mountaineers,
many other entities are needed, primarily tourism workers, who would thus
enrich the offer of their organizations. That this whole idea was met
positively is confirmed by the presence of counseling of tourism
representatives from Dubrovnik, Kotor and Herceg Novi, and their impressions
inspire optimism already at the beginning of the project realization: “I
am delighted with what I heard at this meeting and the expertise of the people
who attended it. I only regret that there was no one from the Ministry of
Tourism or Environmental Protection, because the things that are emphasized
here deserve the attention of the entire tourism industry. This offers what is
missing in Montenegro, which is a trend in the world – an active holiday and a
rich half board offer, for which we have exceptional potentials, so that with
small investments you can get big returns”.
“We, in the tourist association in Kotor, have already made
an agreement with PD Subra and thus expanded our services, although they are
still modest and we should strive to develop a complete joint regional
projects, because by joint performance, Boka and the entire region can compete
much better on the tourism market,” commented Rade Ćoso, director of the
Kotor Tourist Center.
Of course, one such project could not have gone without a man who
is difficult to separately classify among mountaineers or tourist workers,
Željko Franić, fifty-three years old owner of the DAS travel agency from
Dubrovnik, who, as he says, has fifty years of mountaineering under his belts
starting from the day his father brought him to Orjen for the first time when
he was only three years old and since then his love for that mountain and
mountaineering has lasted: “I set out to turn Orjen into something that
represents the future in tourism. We have already, indeed sporadically, started
with the jeep safari program, and from May 15 we start with a complete offer.
”
“Tourists will come daily from Dubrovnik and from Boka Bay to Vrbanj by two groups of minibuses and jeeps, mountain hikes will be organized, as well as the other activities that go with it. Eco-food will be purchased directly from peasants in Vrbanj and Kruševice, where there are still houses which have hearths, which is also an attraction in itself. My father built the Dubrovnik Mountaineering Home on Vrbanj and I really love this mountain and it is my wish to enable these people who live here to make the most of what they have. The only thing that worries me about all of this is the possibility of obtaining a concession in order to prorect all legal tourist workers from the possible appearance of some unregistered providers of similar services, “Franic said.
Montenegro Tourist Service your reliable partner for 15+ years.