Residents of Catalonia, Majorca and Venice warned with protests that the uncontrolled influx of tourists brings more harm than good, and in order to protect its UNESCO status, Dubrovnik was forced to limit the number of daily visitors starting this summer.
As the third most visited cruise port on the Adriatic, with many times more tourists than its infrastructure can handle, Kotor is therefore faced with the question: will it sacrifice its own city for the sake of quick profit from cruise tourism?
The record numbers of cruise ships that bring more than half a million tourists to the Old Town of Kotor with about one and a half thousand inhabitants have warned that Boka is suffering from the Venetian syndrome. And this means that the functionality of the city is impaired by the excessive visitation of tourists, so the old citizens move out. Three to four decades ago, Venice had around 200.000 inhabitants, today it is less than 60.000.
"You see what is happening in our Adriatic neighborhood, in Venice and Dubrovnik, where people are already organizing protests, because everything is starting to get out of control," says master of tourism Radoslav Ćoso, who just recently completed his doctoral thesis on the effects of cruise tourism in Montenegro. Burning.
Over 500 ships with more than 600.000 tourists will sail into the Bay of Kotorska this year, and the nautical season has started earlier than ever, and lasts from January to the end of November. For Kotor, which does not have large hotels, it is the main source of tourist income, emphasizes the director of the Kotor Tourism Organization, Ana Nives Radović:
"The average consumption of a guest from a cruise ship in Kotor is around 40 euros. Considering the total number of guests that exceeds half a million, this is an extremely significant income for Kotor".
There are no total figures on Kotor's earnings from cruise ships, but the Port alone collects over three million euros annually. And to those figures, we should add the fees and service prices of the agencies that bring the cruisers, as well as the prices of excursions that cruise tourists go on during their maximum six-hour stay in Boka.
However, everything goes to the detriment of the quality of life of the inhabitants of Kotor, confirmed in a survey by Saša and Ivan who, like many fellow citizens, bitterly joke at their own expense and say that if the uncontrolled influx of tourists continues, UNESCO's Kotor will turn into a beautiful , but empty packaging.
"Those ships have as many housing units as the entire old town of Kotor. And only today two such came. There are endless lines, if only there were boat transport so that a person could jump from one shore to the other. To fulfill any daily obligation, you need a couple of hours, instead of the usual half an hour", explains the interlocutor of Slobodna Europe.
"It's all nice, both cruise ships and tourists, because we all live from tourism. But," adds Ivana,"Kotor will become just like a toy. A beautiful place, but without life. And where people flee from the city, it becomes a shell only for tourists, and sooner or later it becomes Disneyland".
The uncontrolled influx of tourists also threatens other Mediterranean cities. According to a study by the company Risposte Turismo, over the past two years there were more than 3.700 cruise ships with over 5 million passengers in the Adriatic ports.
Dubrovnik alone, which has about 40.000 inhabitants, is visited annually by over a million tourists, so UNESCO demanded that the number of visitors to the old center be reduced to 8.000 per day. Ana Nives Radovic from the Tourist Organization, however, believes that this is not a solution for Kotor.
"We cannot compare Kotor with Dubrovnik, Venice or Barcelona, because they can choose what type of tourism they want. Kotor, in the absence of large hotels, does not have the luxury of being able to give up a number of cruise ships. Because everything they pay to the port authorities and the city through various fees is a huge source of income for the city and Kotor has no alternative from which to extract the money necessary for the city to live," she says.
On the other hand, Radoslav Ćoso believes that reducing the number of cruise ships and limiting tourist arrivals in Kotor is the only way to satisfy business and preserve what brings tourists to the Bay of Kotor: pulsating life in the medieval town:
"We have nothing to invent hot water. Let's see how they do it in Dubrovnik or Venice, and learn a little of their wisdom. Let's bring it all to a certain extent, so that we who live there, as well as shippers and guests, are satisfied. Let's reduce the number of cruise tourists, but increase the quality, thus the price of the product. The analyzes I have done show that a large number of tourists want to return. Because, truly, Boka is magical, and we must find a measure in the management of cruise tourism in order to preserve it, and to have what is said in the people "both money and money".
In the summer, protests against mass tourism were organized in Spain with the signs "Tourists go home" and "This is not tourism, but terrorism". The citizens of Venice also protested, with the message that tourism has turned the city into a backdrop. The people of Kotor are not protesting yet, but the dissatisfaction of the locals warns that it is high time to do something, so that Kotor avoids the fate of a city of closed sheds.
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