If there’s one thing Dubrovnik is good at, other than walls, history, and all the rest of it, it’s getting in arguments with itself.
The city that needs tourists but often doesn’t really treat them how they should be treated, the city that wants cruise ship money but must also cap vessel numbers, the city full of residents who can barely breathe for being squeezed out of their homes during the summer months but with a local government unit who claims to want to tailor the city to their needs.
The Pearl of the Adriatic is a strange place and paradoxical in many ways and in a multitude of ways, its sheer beauty is only skin deep.
The cable car, one of Dubrovnik’s best attractions which rakes in eye-watering amounts of money per year, transporting hoards of view-hungry tourists up and down the majestic Srđ mountainside to the very top of the rugged mountain which towers over the city, after making them wait in the boiling hot sunshine in a long queue without any shade first, of course, has ceased its functions after much back and forth between the city and the company it belongs to.
As the stunning City of Dubrovnik appears on more and more humiliating ”avoid during summer” lists published by major travel portals, it seems that its case of victimhood to its own popularity is becoming the least of its problems.
As Marija Crnjak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 25th of April, 2019, the decision to ban the carriage of passengers by cable car up to the top of Srđ was issued in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Concessions.
Inspectors from the Customs Administration of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Croatia issued a decision today on the ban on carrying out the activity of transporting passengers from Dubrovnik to Srđ by cable car, which is owned by the Excelsa Nektetnine (Real Estate) company, which belongs to the well known Lukšić family.
The decision to ban the carriage of passengers by cable car has been issued in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Concessions, and is based on the fact that the company doesn’t have a concluded concession contract. The company claims that the City of Dubrovnik never delivered such a contract after that law was passed.
Otherwise, the aforementioned company claims to have been seeking a concession from the City of Dubrovnik since as far back as 2015.
“We’re extremely disappointed that the Customs Administration closed the cable car on Srđ today, after nine years waiting for a concession from the Republic of Croatia and the City of Dubrovnik. This decision will jeopardise a significant number of jobs at Excelsa Nekretnine and its 343 business partners, of which 130 are from Dubrovnik. More than 1400 Excelsa Nekretnine shareholders will suffer, including more than 300 from Dubrovnik.
Damage will also be felt by the state, and by the city and its citizens. The state budget will remain without tax revenues, the City of Dubrovnik will not realise any revenue from the concession, and the citizens who use the cable car at preferential prices, as well as tourists, will remain without the use of the simplest access to Srđ. The Museum of Homeland War on Srđ, owned by the City of Dubrovnik, is expecting to see a decrease in the number of visitors it gets, and guests of the city will remain without the ability enjoy one of Dubrovnik’s biggest attractions,” said Anto Rusković, the director of Excelsa Nekretnine.
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Click here for the original article by Marija Crnjak for Poslovni Dnevnik
