Ulcinj is hosting approximately 42,500 tourists, an increase of 6% from the same period last year, giving Montenegro’s southernmost coastal municipality one of its strongest peak-season occupancy readings in recent years.
The figures released by the Ulcinj Tourism Organisation represent the number of visitors staying in the municipality at a particular point in time, rather than cumulative arrivals since the beginning of the year. They nevertheless provide a useful measure of the pressure being placed on local accommodation, roads, beaches and municipal infrastructure during the first week of August.
Foreign visitors account for approximately 41,400 guests, or more than 97% of the total. The limited domestic share confirms Ulcinj’s dependence on external markets, particularly visitors from neighbouring countries, the wider diaspora and European markets reached predominantly by road.
The strongest growth is concentrated in private accommodation. Apartments, rooms, houses and villas are hosting about 33,000 tourists, an increase of 9% year on year. This segment accounts for nearly 78% of all officially registered visitors in the municipality.
Hotels are accommodating around 7,600 guests, broadly unchanged from the same period in 2025. Their share of the total market is therefore approximately 18%, while camps contain about 1,600 visitors, down 2%. A further 284 guests are registered in holiday resorts and similar facilities, an increase of 10% but still a very small part of the destination’s accommodation structure.
The overall increase is therefore almost entirely a private-accommodation story. Hotel occupancy has not materially expanded, while camping has edged lower. Ulcinj has attracted more visitors, but the additional volume is flowing mainly into individually owned apartments and houses rather than professionally operated hotels.
That composition has immediate economic consequences. Private accommodation distributes tourism income among a wide group of local property owners and supports restaurants, shops, taxis and beach operators. At the same time, it usually produces lower average daily rates, shorter booking visibility and less transparent reporting than the branded hotel sector.
Ulcinj’s 42,500 visitors compare with around 37,000 reported on July 23, meaning the number of guests increased by approximately 5,500 in two weeks as the season moved towards its August peak. This acceleration is normal for a destination dominated by regional road traffic, family travel and apartment accommodation, but it also exposes the limitations of infrastructure designed for a much smaller permanent population.
The municipality’s resident population is only a fraction of the number of visitors present during peak season. Water consumption, wastewater volumes, electricity demand, solid-waste generation and road traffic rise several times above their off-season levels. The growth in tourism therefore cannot be separated from the capacity of public utilities to manage the temporary population.
Ulcinj’s strongest commercial asset remains Velika Plaža, the approximately 12-kilometre sandy beach stretching towards the Bojana River and Ada Bojana. The municipality also combines the Old Town, Mala Plaža, Valdanos, the Bojana delta and a distinct cultural and culinary offer that differentiates it from the more intensively developed central Montenegrin coast.
The physical scale of Velika Plaža allows Ulcinj to accommodate visitor numbers that would create more visible overcrowding in Budva, Kotor or Herceg Novi. Yet the availability of land does not remove infrastructure constraints. Road access, parking, wastewater treatment, drainage and unplanned construction remain critical limits on additional development.
A major €61.8 million wastewater project is intended to address part of that deficit. The investment is being co-financed by an EU grant of about €31 million, more than €26 million in KfW loan financing and national contributions. The programme includes a new wastewater-treatment plant and improvements to the sewerage and water-supply network, with completion expected by 2028.
The planned treatment plant is designed around a long-term capacity of up to 120,000 population equivalents, with an initial phase serving about 40,000 population equivalents. The scale illustrates the gap between Ulcinj’s permanent population and the effective population created by tourism.
For the municipality, wastewater infrastructure is not merely an environmental obligation under the EU accession process. It is an economic prerequisite for hotel financing, higher-density development and the protection of bathing-water quality. International hotel operators and banks are reluctant to finance large coastal projects where utility capacity is uncertain or dependent on temporary solutions.
The project also carries a direct sovereign and municipal financing dimension. EU grants reduce the capital cost, but KfW borrowing and national co-financing still create repayment and operating obligations. The new infrastructure will need a viable tariff model, efficient billing and sufficient connection rates to cover operating and maintenance expenditure after commissioning.
Ulcinj’s current accommodation structure makes that task more difficult. A hotel with several hundred rooms is relatively straightforward to connect, meter and bill. Thousands of individual apartments, informal extensions and seasonal properties create a more fragmented customer base and a higher risk of incomplete registration.
The same issue affects tourism taxation. Officially registered private accommodation accounts for 33,000 guests, but the real number of people staying in the municipality is likely to be higher because not all properties and visitors are recorded. The difference translates into lost residence-tax income, weaker data for infrastructure planning and unfair competition for licensed operators.
Montenegro’s Tax Administration has intensified inspections during the 2026 summer season, conducting more than 2,000 controls and imposing fines approaching €1.8 million by the end of July. Accommodation providers, hospitality businesses and other cash-intensive activities have been treated as high-risk sectors.
For Ulcinj, the enforcement issue is central to the value of the reported 6% visitor growth. A rise in physical occupancy does not automatically produce a corresponding increase in municipal revenue, VAT or formal employment. The fiscal effect depends on whether guests are registered, invoices are issued and workers are legally employed.
This distinction also matters for tourism investors. A hotel project faces formal construction, employment, environmental and tax obligations, while unregistered apartments can operate with materially lower costs. The resulting price competition suppresses hotel rates and weakens the feasibility of professionally managed projects.
Ulcinj needs hotel development, but not simply a higher number of beds. The investment gap is in branded, professionally operated and environmentally compliant accommodation capable of raising spending per visitor and extending the operating season.
One of the more visible developments is Porta Rai Beachfront Hotel & Residences on Velika Plaža. The project is being developed as a mixed hotel and residential complex across approximately 10 hectares, with seven buildings, more than 550 units, a natural lake, landscaped areas and around 300 metres of beachfront. Units have been marketed from roughly €176,000–€185,000, depending on size and sales channel.
The condo-hotel structure can mobilise buyer equity more quickly than a conventional hotel because individual investors finance much of the residential inventory. Its long-term performance will depend on the quality of central management, restrictions on owner use, transparent rental-pool arrangements and the ability to preserve hotel-standard operations after units are sold.
Ulcinj’s state-owned tourism company, HTP Ulcinjska Rivijera, has also prepared a development strategy for Ada Bojana. The plan is intended to raise accommodation capacity from approximately 550 to 1,000 beds by 2030, alongside new camping zones, mobile homes, spa facilities, swimming pools and sports infrastructure.
Ada Bojana occupies a different market position from mass private accommodation. Its naturist tradition, river and coastal environment and low-density character give it potential for nature-based and wellness tourism. Development will need to remain within the island’s environmental carrying capacity, particularly given erosion, flooding and the sensitivity of the Bojana delta.
The wider Velika Plaža area has repeatedly attracted interest from large international investors, including proposals associated with UAE-based developer Mohamed Alabbar and Eagle Hills. The scale of the undeveloped coastline has encouraged visions of multibillion-euro resorts, but it has also generated concern over land control, public access, environmental protection and the terms under which state assets might be made available.
The current tourism figures point towards a more immediate problem. Ulcinj does not lack visitors. It lacks sufficient infrastructure and a higher-value accommodation mix capable of converting existing demand into stronger local wages, tax receipts and year-round commercial activity.
With 78% of guests in private accommodation, the destination is closer to a distributed holiday-rental economy than a conventional hotel market. That provides resilience because tourism income is spread through local households, but it also makes quality control, destination management and international positioning more difficult.
The static hotel figure of 7,600 guests suggests that hotel capacity is already well occupied or has not expanded sufficiently to capture market growth. Additional hotel supply could therefore be commercially justified, particularly in the upper-midscale, family-resort, sports and nature-tourism segments. Luxury positioning alone would not match the full profile of Ulcinj’s demand.
A professionally operated 150–250-room resort on Velika Plaža could require development expenditure of roughly €45 million–€100 million, depending on land arrangements, classification, public infrastructure obligations and the level of amenities. Construction costs for quality coastal hotels have risen sharply, while financing typically requires at least 35–45% equity and credible evidence that operations can extend beyond ten or twelve peak weeks.
Seasonality remains the decisive bankability issue. Ulcinj may accommodate more than 40,000 guests in August but only several thousand during the shoulder months. Annual hotel occupancy, rather than the peak-season snapshot, determines whether debt service can be supported without permanent dependence on residential sales.
The destination has opportunities to extend demand through kitesurfing, cycling, birdwatching, wellness, gastronomy and events. Velika Plaža is already recognised as a regional kitesurfing centre, while the Ulcinj Salina, Ada Bojana and the Bojana delta support nature-based tourism. These products fit April–June and September–October better than the conventional beach model.
Transport access remains another constraint. Ulcinj depends primarily on road arrivals through Albania, Kosovo, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, while international air passengers use Podgorica or Tivat airports. Summer congestion between Bar and Ulcinj reduces the effective accessibility of the destination and raises transfer times during the period of highest demand.
Proposals for a future Ulcinj airport have periodically returned to the policy debate, but no bankable financing and construction programme has yet replaced road dependence. Near-term investment value lies in road improvements, public transport, traffic management and better connections with Podgorica Airport rather than assuming that a new airport will resolve accessibility.
The 6% increase in visitors is commercially encouraging, particularly because it follows a more cautious early-summer picture. It confirms that Ulcinj retains strong demand despite inflation, high regional travel costs and growing competition from Albania, Greece, Croatia and Turkey.
The structure of that growth remains more important than the percentage itself. Private accommodation expanded by 9%, hotels were unchanged and camps declined by 2%. Ulcinj is successfully filling existing residential capacity, but the transition towards a higher-productivity tourism economy remains incomplete.
The €61.8 million wastewater programme, the Ada Bojana development strategy and projects such as Porta Rai begin to address different parts of that gap. Their combined effect will depend on disciplined spatial planning, transparent investment contracts and protection of the natural assets that distinguish Ulcinj from Montenegro’s more heavily urbanised resorts.
Ulcinj’s tourism economy has reached the scale at which infrastructure, regulation and accommodation quality matter more than another seasonal increase in guest numbers. The current presence of 42,500 tourists confirms the depth of demand. The next measure of performance will be the revenue retained locally, the length of the season and the extent to which growth finances permanent improvements rather than adding pressure to already constrained municipal systems.
