Illegal Booking Sites Threaten Montenegro’s Tourism Income

Hotel booking websites which are not legally registered and do not pay taxes are taking large amounts of money out of the country without any control, the Montenegrin tourism association said on Thursday.

The tourism association, which brings together hundreds of hotels, tourist agencies and restaurants in Montenegro, has called on the authorities to open an investigation into illegal domestic and foreign sites which are doing business in the country.

Unregistered online booking websites mainly offer accommodation in private villas and apartments in the coastal towns of Budva and Kotor, with the money going to the private accounts of the site owners.

They often advertise apartments and houses which are not licensed for renting, the tourism association added.

Under the Montenegrin Law on Tourism, the penalty for illegal advertising ranges from 2,500 to 12,000 euro.

"Because they are operating in the zone of the grey economy and unfairly competing, a large number of legal tourism agencies in Montenegro could be closed due to financial problems," the association said.  

But owners of several legal agencies in Budva told BIRN that are not optimistic that the tourism association’s intervention will significantly change the situation, because the damage has already been done.

The owner of CIPA travel agency, Petar Ivkovic, said that according to estimates, there are dozens of unregistered reservation websites in Montenegro, but those based abroad pose an even bigger problem.

"They are not registered in Montenegro, do not pay taxes and earn hundreds of thousands of euros a year. But the state cannot control their business," Ivkovic told BIRN.

Montenegro would not be the first country to investigate contracts...