This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you possibly can go to the hyperlink bellow: https://www.euronews.com/travel/2026/07/24/respect-the-city-how-dubrovnik-is-managing-overtourism-without-losing-its-charmand if you wish to take away this text from our web site please contact us [ad_1] Dubrovnik has spent nearly a decade tackling considered one of trendy tourism’s largest challenges: the right way to stay a preferred vacation spot with out being overwhelmed by its personal success, particularly when recognition reveals no indicators of slowing down. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Over that point, metropolis officers have shifted focus from responding to crisis-mode overtourism to sustainable administration. From the beginning of the 12 months till mid-July, town has already welcomed nearly 650,000 arrivals and two million in a single day stays. Travellers from the UK, US, France, Germany, Poland, Ireland, Spain, Canada and Australia are among the many largest markets to date, with town additionally proving well-liked as a home tourism vacation spot. So, the difficulty isn’t attracting guests. Instead, town’s leaders are targeted on making certain tourism can develop sustainably whereas defending its heritage and preserving locals’ high quality of life. “Here, it’s not just about the numbers,” Mato Franković, Mayor of Dubrovnik, informed Euronews Travel. “Also important is how the flow of numbers is spread throughout a day and across the week.” According to town’s mayor, tourism as soon as grew with little coordination. “For years, tourism in Dubrovnik wasn’t managed, it simply just ‘happened’ on its own,” he stated. “Previously, there would be days where five or six cruise ships would arrive at once, bringing with them so many day-trippers from nearby destinations. That’s when we realised we needed to manage tourism differently, so we divided it into different sectors.” The Dubrovnik native, who has been within the function since 2017, has centred a lot of his tourism technique on the “Respect the City” (RtC) initiative, which initially launched that very same 12 months in response to the immense pressure on the UNESCO-listed Old Town. “Respect for Dubrovnik is something we ask of everyone: citizens, people working in the city, those who come to enjoy Dubrovnik – this is our message to everyone,” he stated. Balancing recognition with preservation Throughout the 2010s, the Old Town, which stands as a residing stage of Dubrovnik’s historical past alongside the Dalmatian coast, bore the immense brunt of town’s growing recognition. Through an inflow of cruise arrivals, wallet-friendly flight tickets, and the vacation spot’s world profile boosted by the success of HBO’s Game of Thrones sequence, this created summers of extreme congestion and left the “Pearl of the Adriatic” struggling to deal with peak customer numbers. “So much so, you could hardly walk or go around to enjoy the city,” Franković informed Euronews Travel. Rather than treating tourism in a catch-all style, the Dubrovnik mayor defined that it's as a substitute managed throughout completely different sectors: specifically cruise tourism, day guests and in a single day stays. As a part of the RtC initiative, not more than two cruise ships can dock on the metropolis’s port at a time with a most of 4,000 passengers. Cruise calls should additionally final for at the very least eight hours. By encouraging longer port stays, Franković defined that passengers usually tend to unfold their travels throughout town and surrounding area, reasonably than converging on the historic centre all of sudden. “We’ve seen that visitors are now choosing to explore more excursions elsewhere,” he stated. “Of course, they still visit the Old Town at some point, but the traffic is now not all at the same time, compared to previously when six cruise ships would arrive and dock for just four hours.” Figures from the Dubrovnik Port Authority present cruise tourism stays resilient, with 2026 anticipating to obtain greater than 661,000 cruise passengers throughout 461 ship calls by the tip of the 12 months. Beyond cruise tourism, Dubrovnik’s RtC initiative additionally turns its consideration to how day guests and in a single day friends transfer by way of town. Coach operators bringing guests from neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and close by Croatian islands should now reserve arrival slots earlier than getting into town underneath the bus webshop scheme. The reserving system permits officers to stagger arrivals all through the day and regulate capability relying on when occasions are being held and as arrival demand fluctuates. While for guests staying longer, town’s Dubrovnik Pass is each a gateway to sightseeing in addition to a customer administration device. Alongside entry to town’s museums and granting entry to public transport, the go additionally permits Dubrovnik to suggest the very best occasions to go to well-liked sights. “Because it's digitalised, we are able to message visitors with the best times to visit attractions, such as the Old City,” Franković stated. “This is something we are especially working to fine-tune: avoiding situations where hundreds and hundreds of people are walking the city at the same time. We want people to choose the best times so they can enjoy the city with their families.” Franković additionally stated town is more and more counting on knowledge to form coming insurance policies. People counters have been put in all through the Old Town to observe footfall. Tourism knowledge is then shared with and analysed by the University of Dubrovnik to determine traits and suggest additional enhancements to town’s customer administration. What’s subsequent for sustainable tourism? Despite Dubrovnik’s world attraction, Franković stated that there are nonetheless corners of town and its environment that stay neglected by guests. He stated: “There are many areas that are still undiscovered, take Mount Srđ, for example.” Rising above Dubrovnik, the hills provide sweeping views throughout the Old Town, Adriatic Sea and surrounding islands, with the AllTrails out of doors actions information platform recommending hikers to enterprise out nearer to the tip of the day to catch the sundown. Rather than creating new vacationer hotspots, the mayor stated town’s precedence is encouraging guests to discover what already exists whereas bettering the general high quality of choices. This can also be the framework shaping future growth plans, as town earmarks underdeveloped tourism zones to get replaced with inexpensive housing for locals and residents to sustainably inhabit. A problem Franković stated extends past Croatia. While different cities throughout Europe additionally grapple with overtourism, he argued {that a} broader problem lies in defending communities from the inflow of too many vacation houses. “Short-term rentals are killing cities because step by step, they push residents out and turn living neighbourhoods into tourist apartment zones,” he stated. “It's going to be identical to a generic Disney-land expertise, and who desires to go to a ghost city? “That’s not what folks need – they wish to see and meet the residents. But if we let this proceed, our residents will likely be pressured out of the key cities and into the distant suburbs. “I hope in the future this won’t continue to be an issue where locals struggle to find good places to live. In fact, there are many villages around us that are now abandoned and they have potential to become great living zones.” In the Old Town, for instance, the everlasting inhabitants has dropped to simply 1,500 folks in stark comparability to 1991's figures of 5,000. Croatia’s method has drawn curiosity elsewhere throughout the continent and Franković stated that European cities are more and more studying from each other’s experiences, saying that his workplace collaborates so much with different regional counterparts. For the way forward for town, his ambition isn't for Dubrovnik to essentially grow to be larger, however to stay recognisably itself. He stated whereas he appears ahead to the nation creating a complete, dependable nationwide rail system, he additionally desires most of its attraction to stay intact. “My hope is that someone will return in 30 years’ time and find the same Dubrovnik. The same beauty, the preserved historical site and clear sea.” [ad_2] This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you possibly can go to the hyperlink bellow: https://www.euronews.com/travel/2026/07/24/respect-the-city-how-dubrovnik-is-managing-overtourism-without-losing-its-charmand if you wish to take away this text from our web site please contact us