Dubrovnik – overwhelmed by visitors and cruise vessels

The southern Croatian city also known as the Pearl of the Adriatic is currently being flooded with tourists and transiting ships.

Part of the Unesco World Heritage, the Dalmatian exquisite town faces tourist overcrowding, as locals are constantly complaining that the noise and the large number of tourists surges to concerning levels year by year. Besides this, the number of locals is in constant decrease, with only 1.157 inhabitants left.

As “the maximum number of tourists in regard to the sustainable carrying capacity of the city” and the one of the cruise ships that are transiting the city’s waters have already been reached, earlier this year Andro Vlahusić, the former Mayor of the city has limited the number of Old Town visitors to 8.000, in order to reduce the risk of the area being overcrowded.

When it comes to cruise ships, more problems arise. The time between docking and disembarkation and the departing moment is only 3 hours. This way, businesses on the shore are losing money, as due to queues and short time they spend inside the city walls, they do not have the chance to buy anything consistent.

“There is a limit of 8,000 cruise ship passengers in Dubrovnik at any one time. Ships vary in size, so there is no limit on the number of ships, only the number of passengers,” commented Sandra Milovčević, member of the Dubrovnik Tourist Board.

Nevertheless, this figures are exceeded yearly during July and August.