August the 30th, 2024 – Unfortunately, the striking Pearl of the Adriatic has become synonymous with overtourism. Will the new Dubrovnik tourism management plans see it finally shed those shackles?
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, this year, a staggering three million tourist overnight stays were realised in Dubrovnik two weeks earlier than they were last year. In addition to that, Croatia’s southernmost city saw 10 percent more overnight stays realised since the beginning of this year.
By achieving this number of overnight stays earlier than normal this year, Dubrovnik has once again confirmed itself as a leading tourist destination, and they attribute this success to the realisation of the carefully planned goals and strategy implemented by all stakeholders in the tourism sector.
will dubrovnik tourism management plans help its international image?
The City of Dubrovnik stated that these three million overnight stays, according to the eVisitor system data, were recorded on August the 23rd, 2024. They added that from the beginning of this year to August the 24th, there were slightly more than 3 million overnight stays realised, which is 10% more than in the same period last year. Tourist arrivals also increased by 10%, meaning that there around 947,000 of them registered.
“The success of a destination isn’t measured exclusively by the increase in the number of tourist arrivals and overnight stays realised. This is only one of the indicators, but at the same time it’s very important when looking at the schedule of growth in the number of overnight stays. Dubrovnik ensured double-digit growth in 2024 by increasing the number of overnight stays in the pre-season and maintaining the same number of overnight stays in the main season as in 2023,” they stated from the city administration.
They also emphasised that owing to Dubrovnik tourism management plans, the city is now an example of “a completely different story” than before when it was “an example of mass tourism on the global map”. They made sure to emphasise that this was done with proper Dubrovnik tourism management plans, not outright bans. They also added that Dubrovnik is expecting an excellent postseason.
While these plans are fantastic news for the city which has attracted a lot of negative press and advice to avoid it in summer of late, it will take time before those shackles can be shed. Mud sticks, as they say, and nowhere is this more true than when it comes to media representation on a global scale.
