In August, 3,62 million overnight stays were recorded in all types of accommodation, the same as last year, while for the entire period January - August there were 12,18 million overnight stays, or 370 thousand fewer than last year for those eight months, which is a decrease of about 3,2 percent.
This is shown by Monstat data on arrivals and the number of overnight stays of foreign and domestic tourists in collective and private accommodation.
In August, 225 thousand fewer overnight stays were recorded in all types of accommodation than in 2023, and compared to the same month in the record-breaking year of 2019, there were now one million fewer overnight stays.
The number of overnight stays is the basic data on which tourist traffic is measured because it is multiplied by the average tourist consumption, which has its own methodology, and thus the value of tourist traffic is obtained, which is the most significant item in Montenegrin gross domestic product.
Tourism statistics show that there are two trends in tourism - that tourists are staying for shorter periods of time and that there is a slight increase in tourist visits in the pre-season, while the main part of the season itself remains at the same number of overnight stays or experiences a decline.
In private accommodation, tourists stayed an average of 7,8 days in August, compared to 8,5 days last year. In collective accommodation, the average stay decreased from last year's average of 3,77 days to this year's 3,6 days. This is why a larger number of tourists spend fewer nights. In the period January - August, 2,1 million tourists stayed in both types of accommodation in Montenegro, about one hundred thousand more than last year, but they spent almost the same number of nights.
In the record-breaking August of 2019, 4,62 million overnight stays were recorded across all types of accommodation, one million more than in the same month this year. The entire decline occurred in private accommodation, while collective accommodation saw an increase of 13 overnight stays.
The reason for this decline compared to August 2019 is a significant decrease in the number of overnight stays by guests from Russia and neighboring countries, without this loss being compensated for from other markets. In August 2019, Russian citizens had 845 thousand overnight stays in private accommodation, and now half a million fewer - 323 thousand, while guests from Serbia then had 1,02 million overnight stays and now 824 thousand. During this comparative period, citizens of Kosovo reduced the number of overnight stays from 291 thousand to 84 thousand, and from Bosnia and Herzegovina from 446 to 337 thousand overnight stays. In other words, these four groups of guests had 1,05 million more overnight stays in private accommodation in August 2019 than in the same month this year.
However, in the pre-season period from January to June this year, over a million more overnight stays were recorded in private accommodation than in the same period in 2019, which made up for the loss of 1,3 million in July and August. So, the total number of overnight stays in private accommodation for the eight months of this year was 7,87 million, while for the same period in 2019, the figure was 8,15 million.
There were 3,93 million overnight stays in collective accommodation in eight months, about 40 thousand fewer than last year, but about 430 thousand more than in the same period in 2019.
There were 11,8 million overnight stays in all types of accommodation for the period January - August, while last year the figure was 12,18 million overnight stays. In this comparative period in 2019, the total number of overnight stays was 11,65 million.
In August 2019, Russian citizens had 845 overnight stays in private accommodation, and now half a million fewer - 323, while guests from Serbia had 1,02 million overnight stays then, and now 824. Kosovo citizens have reduced the number of overnight stays from 291 to 84 for this comparative period.
Beds increased by 13,7 percent, and overnight stays decreased by 22 percent
These data on the number of overnight stays are even more devastating when compared to the significant increase in the number of beds in all types of accommodation since 2019. In all types of accommodation, according to data from the Ministry of Tourism's strategies, the number of beds has increased from 172 to 195,7 thousand in six years, or by 13,7 percent, while the number of overnight stays has decreased by 22 percent compared to August this year and 2019.
That year, hotels and other forms of collective accommodation had a total of 40.814 registered beds, while now that number is 52,2 thousand. The total number of beds is 30 percent higher than in 2019, and the number of overnight stays in collective accommodation in August this year increased by 1,2 percent compared to 2019.
The situation is even worse in private accommodation, where the number of registered beds increased from 128,3 to 139 thousand, or by 8,3 percent, and the number of overnight stays decreased by 29 percent.
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