Panel "UNESCO and the Future of Cruising in the Gulf" held in Kotor

The conference "Boka Kotorska as a Sustainable Nautical Destination", which was held last weekend as part of the "Wind Festival 2026" in Tivat and Kotor, once again opened the issue of the sustainability of cruising tourism in the Bay of Kotor, but also showed the increasingly pronounced paradox of the Montenegrin system - while international organizations and local communities warn of the consequences of excessive pressure from cruise ships, the state and its institutions are still late with concrete measures and strategic responses.

The focus of the meeting, where panelists included the director of the Port of Kotor Ljubo Radović, the mayor of Kotor Vladimir Jokić, the representative of the Dubrovnik Port Authority Dario Barbarić, and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Stevan Kordić from the National Commission for UNESCO, were the recommendations of UNESCO and ICOMOS from the report from February 2025. In that report, cruise ships were recognized as one of the key factors of pressure on the protected area of ​​Kotor - due to pollution, underwater noise, emissions and the huge number of visitors that burden the city and infrastructure in a short time.

One of the recommendations that has attracted the most attention relates to the possibility of banning cruise ships from passing through the Verige Strait in the future and from anchoring in the Tivat and Herceg Novi parts of the bay, i.e. outside the innermost UNESCO protected zone.

Member of the National Commission for UNESCO and professor at the Faculty of Maritime Affairs in Kotor, Stevan Kordić, reminded that the recommendations are not formal prohibitions, but they are a serious signal that the current development model is not sustainable in the long term.

While UNESCO's recommendations have been discussed for years, concrete steps by the state are still lacking. This is precisely what the Mayor of Kotor, Vladimir Jokić, indirectly pointed out, emphasizing that cruising tourism cannot be viewed unilaterally and that responsible management of processes that are global and that the local community cannot control alone without state support is necessary.

Jokić reminded that the local government, together with the Port of Kotor, is already implementing some of the obligations that should be systematically regulated at the state level - from controlling the number of arrivals and coordinating arrivals, to attempts to reduce pressure on the city's infrastructure and managing tourist flows during the peak season.

He emphasized that the growth of tourism cannot be stopped, but that it must be managed in a planned and responsible manner, with a balance between economic interests and the protection of the area under UNESCO protection.

"We can discuss the problems, but we cannot ignore the fact that the number of tourists is growing all over the world. It is up to us to find a model that will enable sustainability and quality of life for citizens," said the Mayor of Kotor.

He particularly pointed out the problem of excursion tourism and road traffic, which he believes represents a much greater challenge for the city than the cruise ships themselves.

"Cruisers are visible and therefore often the first to be criticized, but one of the biggest problems in Kotor is uncontrolled excursion tourism and road traffic. Last year we had more than 20 thousand registered bus arrivals," said Jokić.

He recalled that last year the Municipality of Kotor introduced a new system for managing bus arrivals, through pre-booked times and precisely defined capacities, which has already led to a reduction in traffic jams on Benovo.

Speaking about the future of cruising tourism, Jokić announced that the strategic commitment of the Port of Kotor and the Municipality is to consider the model of anchoring cruisers outside Veriga in the coming period, with organized transportation of passengers on smaller ships to Kotor.

"No one said that cruising should be abolished. UNESCO recommendations primarily speak about more serious planning and management," said Jokić, adding that this is a complex process that requires cooperation between the state, local governments and all relevant institutions.

He also recalled the importance of the cruising industry for the local economy, stating that tourist revenue represents an important economic boost for the city.

Director of the Port of Kotor AD Ljubo Radović said that 566 ship arrivals are planned for this year, which represents an increase of 17 percent compared to the previous year.

He emphasized that the Port of Kotor operates within existing capacities and according to sustainable principles, recalling that most of the traffic takes place at anchorages in the Kamenari-Orahovac zone.

"We must act in the long term and responsibly. In this industry, reservations are made years in advance, which is why every change requires serious planning," Radović emphasized.

The experiences of Dubrovnik were presented by the representative of the Dubrovnik Port Authority, Dario Barbarić, who spoke about the "Respect the City" model, developed after years of excessive tourist pressure on Dubrovnik.

Barbarić recalled that Dubrovnik, following UNESCO's recommendations, limited the number of cruise ships and passengers and established clear mechanisms for managing the destination. Now, a maximum of two cruise ships with a total of four thousand passengers can stay in the city at the same time, which is the result of close and continuous cooperation with decision-makers, which are the competent state authorities, primarily the Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure of the Republic of Croatia.

"In the long term, sustainability must take precedence over short-term economic benefits," he said.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Stevan Kordić from the National Commission for UNESCO reminded that ICOMOS, in its reports, recognizes cruise ships as one of the significant factors of pressure on the protected area of ​​Boka Kotorska, both due to pollution and due to the large number of visitors.

He explained that UNESCO's recommendations are not prohibitions, but guidelines that should show that the state and local communities are responsibly approaching the management of protected areas.

"UNESCO and ICOMOS are like diagnosticians - they point out the problem, and it is up to us to find a sustainable solution," said Kordić.

Despite increasingly serious warnings from international organizations, Montenegro still does not have a unified strategy for managing cruise tourism in Boka Bay, nor clearly defined ecological and infrastructural development limits. There is no integrated system that would connect the Ministry of Transport and Maritime Affairs, the Ministry of Ecology, the Maritime Safety Administration, the Public Company for Coastal Zone Management, local governments and scientific institutions in joint planning for the protection of the bay.

Instead, the main burden of managing the consequences of cruise tourism remains with local institutions, which have limited competencies.

In the cruising industry, business plans are made years in advance, which is why any serious change in the possible reduction in the number of ship arrivals in Kotor or their relocation from the waters of the Bay of Kotor to the waters of Tivat requires a long-term strategy and timely response from the state.

"This is precisely what further complicates the passivity of national institutions. If the schedule of cruise ship arrivals is planned two or three years in advance, then it is clear that sustainability cannot be achieved through ad hoc reactions, nor through declarative commitment to the protection of Boka," emphasized the director of the Port of Kotor, Ljubo Radović.

Unlike Dubrovnik, Montenegro does not yet have a defined maximum acceptable load for the Bay of Kotor. The Municipality and the Port of Kotor have developed a destination assessment based on Dubrovnik, available on the Port of Kotor website, and a new Management Plan for the Kotor area is currently being developed, which also addresses this issue. However, changes require action by state authorities, as the state is formally the owner of the coast and is responsible for the legal changes necessary to establish sustainable management of the destination.

Therefore, one of the key conclusions of the conference was that sustainability must not remain just a slogan behind which the lack of state responsibility will be hidden.

"Because, while the local community, scientific institutions and part of the economy are trying to establish at least a minimal balance between development and protection of the area, national institutions are still operating without a clear vision of how to preserve Boka, which is both a tourist resource and a world heritage site," said the participants of the panel on the relationship between cruising and UNESCO in Kotopr.