Wondering where not to go in 2020? Dubrovnik is no longer dominating those articles and lists…
Dubrovnik has become a victim of its own success and over recent years the negative effects of that have become more and more apparent. From cruise ship pollution to overcrowding to the massive overuse of old infrastructure that was never designed for such volumes of people and traffic. Owing to the above mentioned points, plus countless others, Croatia’s southernmost city and tourist Mecca has unfortunately found itself on numerous ”where not to go” lists over the last few years. It seems that enough steps have now been taken to see it removed from such lists.
As Morski writes on the 15th of January, 2020, the positive effects of systematic measures launched by the City of Dubrovnik’s local government back inn 2017 with the “Respect the City” (Poštujmo grad) project have been recognised internationally among the professional public and the international media, and in support of this is the list compiled by the popular British publication The Independent entitled “Where Not to Go in 2020”.
Dubrovnik has not been included in the list of destinations to be avoided in 2020, after precisely this medium listed Dubrovnik along with Venice and Barcelona (in 2017) as a destination whose protected heritage is endangered due to an excessive number of tourists. Numerous other portals with a focus on travel also listed the Pearl of the Adriatic on their ”where not to go” lists.
”This imposed stigma on mass tourism didn’t affect its popularity at all, on the contrary, statistics testify to the increase in tourist arrivals from year to year. However, there were no unbearable crowds and blocking of the entrance to the historic core, except once in exceptional circumstances due to the ship’s earlier arrival, which showed that Dubrovnik’s problem was not the number of tourists, but the management of the destination.
Thanks to the controlled, effective and strategic measures of the local self-governmental unit, this negative trend was stopped and the negative effects of the most important economic branch of the city and its surroundings were prevented. Dubrovnik has thus transformed itself from a city where tourism spontaneously happens to a destination that responsibly manages tourism, respecting the identity of the city and protecting the natural and cultural resources that attract millions of people,” pointed out Marko Miljanić, Head of the Department of Tourism, Economy and Maritime Affairs of Dubrovnik.
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