May the 21st, 2025 – The Dubrovnik hotel scene is making a slow but sure shift towards luxury, with multiple projects currently being developed.
As Sinisa Malus/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, Dubrovnik is undoubtedly one of the most popular tourist destinations in the entire Mediterranean. With more than 1.4 million arrivals and 4.6 million overnight stays recorded in the Pearl of the Adriatic in 2024, this stunning city has only about 40 hotels and about 4,800 accommodation units in its jurisdiction.
Most of Dubrovnik’s hotels are owner-managed, with only a few global hotel brands on the local market, all in the four- or five-star segments. “The scene is currently experiencing the most exciting pace of hotel and resort development yet. The wider Dubrovnik area is ready to move towards a more luxury-oriented positioning,” revealed analysts at Avison Young.
On the Dubrovnik hotel scene, some of the proposed luxury projects under development or in preparation include the Hotel Grand Villa Argentina, owned by Adriatic Luxury Hotels, which is currently under (re)construction. That massive project was designed by the 3LHD architectural office from Zagreb.
The upcoming Hotel Argentina will include two villas; Argentina on the east side and Orsula on the west. Together, the complexes will create a unique functional unit and provide additional luxury facilities. The enormous Kupari project is next. HPL is the investor and partner of Four Seasons taking on this hefty job. After decades of delay, construction at the abandoned Kupari complex is expected to finally begin by the end of the year.
Looking at the Dubrovnik hotel scene and its shift towards luxury across the wider area, we need to mention the Cavtat Marina Resort. This multi-purpose resort is currently in the permitting phase. Then we have Plat Hotels, another multi-purpose resort also in the permitting phase.
Last but not least is the iconic Hotel Belvedere in Dubrovnik’s Sveti Jakov area. It’s the last “brownfield” hotel in the city, and has been left standing derelict and like an eyesore on the Dubrovnik coastline since the Homeland War. In the publicly available cadastral data on the building, the owner of the hotel remains property of a company owned by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, Vila Larus. The formerly glamorous hotel is still a neglected monstrosity left to rot.
“The hotel has its own owner. He’s in Cyprus, he has not contacted us. We don’t know anything about their plans, projects, proposals… anything. By the way, some people have come to us who were interested in buying it, who had specific plans for the hotel. Some even wanted to reconstruct the Belvedere as it once was. Representatives of brands such as One and Only have come. We’d absolutely like the project to come to life and I think that this is in the interest of both the city and the people, but we’re unfortunately in a situation where the owner has clearly not yet made a decision on whether to sell or not. If he does contact us, we’ll certainly provide him with full support so that things can finally move forward from the deadlock,” assured Dubrovnik Mayor Mato Franković.
In any case, Croatian tourism has billions in investments in its hotel capacities on the cards. Such a move is of crucial importance for improving the quality of tourist accommodation. This is primarily because only 10 percent of the capacities in Croatian tourism is in hotel beds, compared to an average of 43 percent in other (competing) Mediterranean destinations.
According to the value of investments in hotels over three years of around 1.5 billion euros (Top Hotel projects), Croatia ranks third in the Southeastern European region (including Austria and Turkey). It is ahead of Austria (1.3 billion euros) and nearby Greece (1.2 billion euros), but behind neighbouring Montenegro (1.6 billion euros).
The plan is to construct 6,155 hotel rooms across Croatia, which is still less than in Austria (9,452), Greece (7,204) or Montenegro (6,229). It indicates that investments in higher category accommodation units (four or five stars) are primarily being realised. Across the country, 2,794 rooms are planned in the 5* segment and 3,361 rooms in the 4* segment. According to the value of investment per key of 235,000 euros, Croatia ranks second in the immediate region and significantly exceeds the regional average of 157,000 euros per key.
