Around 15,000 tourists from China have visited Montenegro since the beginning of the year, which is four times more arrivals than last year, the National Tourism Organization (NTO) announced.
NTO representative, Milena Vujović, said that since the beginning of the year, ending on July 31st, according to Monstat’s preliminary data, there were about 15,000 tourists from the Chinese market, who made about 30,000 overnight stays.
“This means that we have recorded significant growth. We had about four times more arrivals from this market compared to the previous year, while in terms of overnight stays we were at a level of 70 percent compared to 2019,” Vujović said.
She stated that we are again on the White List of recommended destinations for Chinese citizens, which confirms that we are slowly returning to that market after the pandemic.
This is supported by the planned participation of NTO at this year’s International Tourism Fair in China, as well as the business workshop that will be held in Beijing.
In 2019, the travel agency Montenegro Tourist Service DMC (MTS) managed to bring about 100 groups of guests from the Chinese market to our country, as well as several dozen groups to the Balkans.
Director of sales at MTS, Miloš Bulatović, said that practically 2020 should have been a “boom” year for Montenegro when it comes to the Chinese market, but everything stopped because of the pandemic.
“That year, the groups were supposed to start in January. The Chinese market is one of the most important for the entire Balkans. Western markets mainly focus on the summer months, while tourists from China fill capacity outside the main season. The main months when they come are September, October, then April, May, and they often come in the winter months as well,” said Bulatović.
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