Montenegro’s tourism sector closed 2025 with headline numbers that would look strong in almost any small European economy: 15.37 million overnight stays and €1.48bn in tourism revenue. Yet the final government review of the Tourism Development Strategy 2022–2025 shows a more complicated picture. The country has recovered revenue, kept tourism at the centre of its economic model and improved parts of its destination offer, but it has not solved the structural weaknesses that have constrained the sector for years.
The central contradiction is clear. The 2025 Action Plan was formally implemented at a high rate of 91 per cent, with 40 out of 53 planned activities fully completed, eight partially completed and five not implemented. That is better than the implementation rates of previous years, when execution stood at 85 per cent in 2022 and 83 per cent in both 2023 and 2024. On paper, the machinery of tourism policy improved. In market terms, however, the results were less convincing.
Two of the three main strategic indicators were not achieved. Overnight stays in 2025 were 6.36 per cent above the 2019 level, but far below the targeted increase of 40 per cent. Tourism revenue reached €1.48bn, or 34.8 per cent more than in 2019, but still missed the planned growth target of 50 per cent. The only target that was exceeded was tourism’s estimated direct and indirect contribution to GDP, which reached 28.5 per cent, above the planned 25 per cent.
That result underlines both the strength and the vulnerability of Montenegro’s economy. Tourism is not just a large sector; it is one of the country’s main macroeconomic stabilisers. It supports consumption, employment, foreign-currency inflows, real estate demand, transport, hospitality investment and local government revenues. But a sector with such a large GDP footprint also becomes a concentration risk when growth depends on a short season, a limited number of source markets and an incomplete regulatory and digital framework.
The most important market signal is the decline from priority source markets. In 2025, Montenegro recorded 9.92 million overnight stays from its ten priority markets, down 5.05 per cent compared with 2024. The largest falls came from Russia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, North Macedonia and Serbia, while growth was recorded from the United Kingdom, Albania, France and Poland. More importantly, priority-market overnight stays remained below the 2019 level of 10.72 million, with the 2025 index standing at 92.51.
This is a strategic warning. Montenegro can no longer assume that traditional markets will automatically deliver long stays and reliable seasonal occupancy. Russia is structurally different as a source market after the geopolitical rupture of recent years. Regional demand remains important but price-sensitive. Western European markets require stronger air connectivity, better packaging and higher service consistency. The country therefore needs a more diversified tourism model, not only more promotional spending.
There are signs of that diversification. The fastest growth in overnight stays in 2025 came from markets such as Azerbaijan, Malta, India, Greece and Israel, while increases were also recorded from more distant markets including New Zealand, China, Japan, Brazil, the United States and Australia. These numbers are still developing from a smaller base, but they point toward a broader opportunity: Montenegro can attract higher-value, more geographically diversified visitors if it aligns visas, air routes, tour operators, hotel capacity and destination programming.
The stronger parts of the strategy were promotion, new tourism products, accommodation quality, human resources and infrastructure. The destination campaign “Uncover Your Wild Side” won nine awards, including seven within the CIFFT framework and an award at the Golden City Gate festival in Berlin. The National Tourism Organisation carried out 18 marketing campaigns with tour operators and online travel agencies. In product development, 140 projects were supported across event, cultural, rural and other tourism categories. The Ministry of Tourism supported 112 projects with €458,086, while the National Tourism Organisation supported 28 projects with €398,245.
The sector also developed 10 new tourism products, above the target of six, issued 53 Montenegro Quality certificates, and supported new attractions through incentive measures. These are useful steps. They show that Montenegro is trying to move beyond a narrow sun-and-sea offer and build stronger rural, cultural, adventure, event and experience-based tourism. But the financial scale remains modest compared with the size of the sector and the depth of the reforms required.
Infrastructure absorbed most of the spending. Across the 2022–2025 action-plan period, €69.04mn had been planned, while €58.18mn was actually spent. Of that, €55.65mn came from the state budget and €2.54mn from donor funds. The capital budget accounted for €53.21mn, or 92 per cent of total spending. In 2025 alone, €13.95mn was spent against a plan of €10.43mn, meaning actual spending exceeded the plan by 33.72 per cent, largely because of higher capital-budget and donor-funded expenditure.
This spending profile shows where Montenegro’s tourism policy still feels most comfortable: physical infrastructure. The report highlights projects such as works at Kolašin 1600, Đalovića Cave, artificial snowmaking at Savin kuk, airport improvements, new air routes, road links, border crossings and energy infrastructure. These projects matter because access, winter tourism, northern development and better transport links are essential for reducing seasonality. But infrastructure alone will not modernise the tourism model if regulation, data and governance remain weak.
The weakest part of the strategy was the legal framework. Three key laws were not completed: the Law on Tourism and Hospitality, amendments to the Law on Tourist Organisations, and the Law on Residence Tax. The reasons listed include changes in government and ministries, personnel changes in institutions, limited administrative capacity, complex procedures, poor coordination and the lasting effects of the 2022 cyberattack on the government’s information system.
This is the most damaging part of the report. Montenegro had a strategy, action plans and a high formal implementation rate, but it did not complete the legal reforms that would most directly affect formalisation, statistics, residence-tax collection, the grey economy and destination governance. For a country where private accommodation, seasonal work and informal activity remain significant, delayed legislation is not a technical issue. It is a revenue, quality-control and competitiveness issue.
The failure to fully activate the National Tourism Council is another institutional weakness. Although its formation was planned as early as 2022, frequent personnel and institutional changes prevented it from operating at full capacity. That matters because tourism cuts across transport, infrastructure, local government, spatial planning, environmental protection, taxation, labour, education and foreign policy. Without a functioning coordination body, the sector remains fragmented.
Digitalisation is the other major unfinished reform. The e-visitor project, intended to create an electronic guest-registration system, was only partially implemented in 2025, mainly through analysis of existing digital tools. For 2026, the government has allocated €1.37mn for the development, testing, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, guarantee and maintenance of a tourism information system.
That investment is overdue. Without a functional digital visitor-registration platform, Montenegro cannot accurately measure tourist flows, monitor individual accommodation, reduce the grey zone or make faster policy decisions based on real-time data. The absence of an integrated system weakens everything from residence-tax collection to local infrastructure planning. In a tourism economy of this size, data is no longer an administrative luxury. It is operating infrastructure.
The strategic lesson from the final report is that Montenegro has tourism growth, but not yet a sufficiently strong tourism system. Revenue has recovered. New products have been supported. International promotion has improved. Infrastructure is moving. New source markets are appearing. But the sector remains heavily seasonal, highly exposed to external shocks, dependent on a limited number of markets and weakened by unfinished laws, fragmented governance and incomplete digital control.
This distinction matters for investors. Hotel developers, airport operators, destination-management companies, tour operators and lenders do not look only at visitor numbers. They look at the reliability of the season, the purchasing power of guests, the quality of regulation, the depth of labour supply, the capacity of infrastructure and the transparency of data. Montenegro’s natural appeal is not in doubt. The investment question is whether the institutional framework can support higher-category hotels, longer operating periods and better yield per visitor.
The next tourism strategy is expected to cover a 10-year period, with two-year action plans that can be revised according to market and external conditions. That is the right direction. A longer framework should allow the country to move beyond annual implementation percentages and focus on measurable outcomes: more high-quality hotels, stronger northern tourism, better airport connectivity, lower seasonality, improved formalisation, digital registration, richer destination products and more resilient source-market diversification.
The recommendation to involve local communities more actively is also important. Tourism development cannot be managed only from central government or coastal municipalities. Rural tourism, protected areas, mountain destinations, cultural routes and adventure products require local participation, environmental discipline and better coordination with infrastructure and land-use planning. A more serious gender component, stronger management of protected areas and improved cooperation with global platforms also point toward a more modern policy framework.
Montenegro’s €1.48bn tourism revenue in 2025 is therefore both an achievement and a warning. The sector is large enough to sustain the economy, but also large enough to expose the country when policy execution falls short. The next cycle cannot rely on the comfort of high implementation percentages. It needs fewer formal milestones and more real structural change: a working e-visitor system, completed laws, stronger market diversification, more transparent accommodation data, disciplined destination management and a clearer shift from volume to value.
Montenegro has already proven that it can attract tourists and generate revenue. The harder task is to build a tourism economy that is less seasonal, less informal, less dependent on legacy markets and more capable of supporting high-value investment throughout the year.
