The political fights between the Municipality and the Tourist Organization of Budva must stop urgently and the campaign and promotion of the New Year's program in front of the Old Town must be started immediately, because failure to hold a public reception of the New Year would be the definitive collapse of tourism, after a bad summer season and everything that followed it. , from garbage and dirty city, to unearthed streets.
This is what the president of the Association of Hotels of Montenegro, Nikola Pejović, said in an interview with "Vijesti", assessing that politics must be banished from tourism, because the city lives on that economic activity.
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The Tourist Organization previously told "Vijesta" that they have the finances to organize a three-day program and a planned music program with the biggest regional stars, but that they are waiting for the green light from the Municipality for a full moon whether they are ready to, as has been the case for the past 25 years, and they plug into the organization. On the occasion of the anniversary, 25 years since the organization of the first public reception, TO Budva was ready to hire a world star this year, such as Eros Ramazoti, Cuker, Bočeli... but they did not receive feedback from the Municipality about their participation.
Pejović did not hide his disappointment with how Budva looked this summer, and that the cancellation of the public reception would damage its image.
"We have a big problem because of the relationship between the Municipality and TO Budva, we are entering November, and we don't know who will be visiting the Old Town square as part of the New Year's program. Tivat, Kotor and Bar have already announced programs of public receptions in the squares of those coastal cities, but Budva is still silent. A large number of owners of travel agencies with whom we traditionally cooperate call us, people want to know what the New Year's program is, because Budva has been recognized for the best program in all previous years, which lasted for several days. Estimates are that during the New Year's holidays Budva will be visited by 30 to 50 thousand guests, they mostly come by bus from the countries of the region, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Albania, Bulgaria, and we also have inquiries from Turkey. We had 50 buses coming from North Macedonia alone, that's not a little. I hope that we will exceed the visit from previous years, but we need to know what the program is like, because that is a prerequisite for us to be able to sell arrangements. We have excellent attendance when it's carnival, New Year's Eve, when there are traditional events. Do we need to destroy all of that", emphasized Pejović.
Pejović says that it is high time to activate people from the economy, because there has been enough of political meddling.
"People who know what tourism is must ask themselves. The city was in a disastrous state this summer. To be realistic, we had a dirty city, tourists and tow trucks were walking around us in the same period. It was a shame. The reconstructed street in the city center was only opened to us on July 18. I walked every day, I was ashamed of how it all looked. You had garbage and landfills on the streets, a live infection, God forbid that someone got infected. We would be the same as a few summers ago when tourists were poisoned, the media in the entire region were buzzing about it," said Pejović.
He points out that he hopes that after these November elections, he will sit down at the table and no longer ask about politics in Budva, but about the profession. "People from the economy who want to work, to create for the benefit of the city should be appointed to key positions, because the city lives from the economy, not the other way around. Budva lives from people who have restaurants, hotels, cafes... Unfortunately, now you have the case that only shops of Turkish citizens operate in the Old Town, we lost our lives in the Old Town. You don't have a trash can in the Old Town, you don't have a toilet, we have a gold mine, what is the Old Town like, and it's like we don't have it. Let's do something good for the city, to make it function like Dubrovnik. You don't have platforms or parking lots for tourist buses, tourists are led by foreign guides, not our people. We have many ways to fill the city's budget, and not allow illegal work to flourish," Pejović pointed out.
Cooks and waiters are employed in the Municipality and its companies
Pejović said that municipalities and state and municipal enterprises have become the biggest competitors of the hotel and restaurant industry in terms of workforce.
"I know there are elections in Budva, but please don't promise to hire. We have a situation where our waiters, cooks and other workforce move to the Municipality, Municipal Corporation, Water Supply, local or state institution and we are left without workforce. We are forced to work as a family, alone, as long as we can, so in a few years we will also move to work in the Municipality, because there you have free Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, winter vacations, retreats... We will come to a situation where the city will not be able to lives, because the economy is slowly shutting down", warned Pejović.
They are not calling to talk about the season, but when they want to replace Kuljača
Pejović said that, although the Municipality of Budva organized meetings of the Coordinating Body for the preparation and monitoring of the tourist season, he never received an invitation to attend on behalf of the Association, and the invitation only came when they organized a session of the Assembly of TO Budva to replace the director Nemanja Kuljača.
"As the president of the Hotel Association of Montenegro, where the Municipality building is across the street from my house, I was never invited by the local administration to the Coordination Body for the preparation of the season in Budva. However, they invited me to come to the session of the TO Assembly where the dismissal of the director of Kuljača was announced. That was not right, they should have called in a different way, how to do it. On the same day and at the same time, there was a meeting of the Coordination Body for the preparation of the season at the state level, which was scheduled ten days earlier by the Ministry of Tourism and then sent invitations to all members. "We responded to the invitation to go to the meeting of the Coordination Body, because this in Budva was, unfortunately, a political fight," said Pejović.
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