After several years of uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic, tourism workers are eagerly awaiting the arrival of summer, and Neum’s hoteliers are announcing a record season.
In an interview for Fena, the vice president of the Association of Hoteliers Neum Davor Krešić assessed that, if the current indicators are to be believed, in the only BiH the city by the sea can expect a record season.
“The indicators we have are very good. The preseason should be better than last year, although the fourth month is not quite as full as we would have liked. The fourth month is the month of congress tourism, and since it is Ramadan, many people postpone seminars and conferences for the end of the fourth and fifth months, so I think we will make up for everything in the fifth and sixth months,” said Krešić.
Neum’s hotels have about three thousand beds, and this year accommodation will be about 10 percent more expensive than in 2022.
“The price increase was inevitable since all our inputs went up, from energy to the salaries of our employees, so we had to raise prices. However, we are still much more favorable than Croatia, certainly by 30 percent or more,” he added.
For Neum hotels, 2022 was not a record year in terms of the number of overnight stays, but in terms of revenues, last year can be compared to the most successful year so far, 2019:
“The main reason why the number of overnight stays did not reach 2019 is that we still lack guests from Asian markets, because before the pandemic they traveled all 12 months of the year. There is still a standstill there, but we have announcements that they could also return in slightly larger numbers from the fall. I hope that those guests will return to us, that at least part of the hotel will extend the season until the winter period precisely because of those circular tours from the eastern markets.”
The extension of the season, Krešić pointed out, is what all tourism workers should focus on:
“In the peak season, we don’t have much room for further growth. What needs to be worked on is the improvement of the content and the extension of the season so that Neum has more occupancy both in the pre-season and in the post-season, as well as in the winter period. In the very peak of the season, in the seventh and eighth months, no matter how much capacity you have, you will sell it out and you will have congestion like every place in Jadaran. Neum is no exception,” said Krešić.
The people of Neum will also remember the year 2022 for the completion of two major road projects: the main road Stolac – Neum and the Pelješki bridge. While connecting Neum with a modern road to the interior of the country is good news for everyone, when asked who profited from the opening of the Pelješki bridge, Krešić says that there is no clear answer:
“If you ask the local residents of Neum, they will tell you that the opening of the Pelješki bridge is good news. There are less crowds, life is more normal, the interior of the country is more accessible to us, and there are no crowds at the borders. Hoteliers felt the impact to some extent, but not too much. The most affected are business entities located along the highway itself, which used to pass two million vehicles annually, and now 90 percent of that traffic is diverted to the Pelješki Bridge” he concluded.
