Montenegro recorded modest tourism growth in the first seven months of 2026, but the national figures masked a widening divide between coastal destinations, with Bar and Herceg Novi posting double-digit gains while Budva, Kotor and Tivat recorded declines.
The country registered 859,451 tourist arrivals in collective accommodation between January and July, up 1.5% from a year earlier, while overnight stays increased 2.4% to 2.94 million, preliminary data from statistics office Monstat showed.
The figures cover hotels, motels, hostels, tourist resorts, camps and other forms of collective accommodation but exclude privately rented houses, rooms and apartments, an important segment of Montenegro’s tourism market. That distinction means the data provide a clearer picture of organised accommodation demand than of the tourism sector as a whole.
Foreign visitors remained the main driver of growth. Their arrivals increased 1.9% to 761,269, while domestic arrivals fell 1.8% to 98,182.
Foreign tourists generated 2.59 million overnight stays, up 3%, compared with 349,764 nights by domestic visitors, down 1.7% from the corresponding period of 2025.
Serbia remained Montenegro’s most important foreign market by a wide margin, accounting for 507,985 overnight stays in collective accommodation during the first seven months. Britain followed with 221,470, Germany with 155,472, France with 154,297 and Poland with 146,302.
The geographic distribution of that demand is becoming less uniform.
Coastal destinations generated around 2.59 million overnight stays, up 2.6% year on year, but performance varied sharply between municipalities.
Bar was among the strongest performers, recording 303,719 overnight stays, an increase of about 13.1%. Herceg Novi performed similarly strongly, with 506,198 nights, up about 11.3%.
Ulcinj recorded 221,148 overnight stays, an increase of 2.2%.
The figures suggest that Montenegro’s tourism growth is spreading more strongly into parts of the coast outside its traditionally dominant resort centres. Recent August data from Bar also point to sustained momentum, with visitor numbers and hotel occupancy running above year-earlier levels during the peak summer period.
Budva, by contrast, recorded a modest decline despite remaining by far the country’s largest organised tourism destination.
Overnight stays in the municipality fell about 1.1% to 1.26 million, although Budva still accounted for roughly 43% of all collective-accommodation nights in Montenegro during the January-July period.
The fall is relatively small in percentage terms, but it is significant because of Budva’s weight in Montenegro’s tourism industry. Changes in visitor numbers, average stays or hotel demand in the municipality can have an outsized effect on national tourism revenue and employment.
Kotor recorded a steeper contraction, with overnight stays falling around 4.5% to 173,074, while Tivat registered 123,977 nights, down approximately 2.8%.
The contrasting trends point to a tourism season characterised more by redistribution than uniform expansion. Stronger growth in Bar and Herceg Novi is compensating for weaker results in several of Montenegro’s higher-profile destinations around Budva and the Bay of Kotor.
Demand outside the coast also strengthened in some areas.
Mountain destinations recorded 98,459 overnight stays, an increase of 13.3%, while locations classified as other tourist destinations posted 61,459 nights, up 12.1%.
Podgorica moved in the opposite direction. Overnight stays in the capital fell 8.9% to 180,792, from 198,454 in the first seven months of 2025.
July itself delivered stronger national growth than the seven-month average, providing some evidence that the peak season gained momentum after a mixed start to the year.
Montenegro recorded 244,754 arrivals and 1.081 million overnight stays in collective accommodation in July, according to Monstat. Arrivals were about 4.4% higher than a year earlier and overnight stays increased roughly 3.9%.
Foreign visitors generated 990,472 overnight stays in July, equivalent to about 91.6% of the total, compared with 90,777 nights by domestic tourists.
The data leave Montenegro on course for overall tourism growth in 2026, but the composition of that expansion may be more important for the industry than the national headline rate.
With Budva, Kotor and Tivat losing some ground while Bar and Herceg Novi expand at double-digit rates, the season is showing signs of a gradual shift in demand across the Adriatic coast. For hotel operators, investors and municipalities, the divergence will increasingly put the focus on length of stay, accommodation capacity, accessibility and visitor spending, rather than simply national arrival numbers.
