For the fifth summer running, apartments on Montenegro’s famed Sveti Stefan Island remain shuttered. Around the landmark, deck chairs and umbrellas have disappeared from some nearby beaches and the shoreline is fully open to the public.
Adriatic Properties, the operators of the Aman Sveti Stefan resort, first closed the island and nearby Villa Milocer, a sister property, in 2021 amid protests. Demonstrators that year broke down fences around a beach leased by the resort company, demanding free public use of the pebbled coastline.
After the closure in 2021, the hotel's tenant, Adriatic Properties, and the Montenegrin state launched lawsuits against each other at a court in London. Podgorica is pushing for the company to reopen the island hotel. Adriatic Properties is suing for damages from the protests and subsequent public access to the beaches, which they say interferes with the privacy of their guests.
Four beaches around the island had previously been reserved for hotel guests, or to people willing to pay upwards of 120 euros per day to rent a pair of deck chairs and an umbrella. Despite claims the island resort complex would be reopened, Sveti Stefan and Villa Milocer have remained closed since the 2021 protests.
On the beaches around Sveti Stefan, access is now free, but there are no showers, changing cabins or toilets.
When RFE/RL’s Balkan Service visited Queen’s Beach, one of the bays near Sveti Stefan, Maja from Serbia was relaxing on the shoreline. "I’d never been to Queen's Beach before because it was closed,” she said, adding, “I say ‘closed’ because expensive means closed to me."
But while uncertainty over Sveti Stefan has been positive for many tourists, the impact of Sveti Stefan’s closure has hit the local economy, residents say.
Resident Slobodanka Kentera says the closure of the elite resorts in Sveti Stefan has marked a shift in the type of tourists arriving to the town. “Everything that is happening around Sveti Stefan has turned away more affluent guests,” she says. Where wealthy tourists would come to the area to rent apartments for weeks on end, today, she says,“tourists only book for two or three days.”
In its ‘golden age’ through the 1960s and 70s, Sveti Stefan was one of the most exclusive spots along the Yugoslav coast. The former fishing village was frequented by Hollywood celebrities and European royalty who came to plunge into the sparkling waters of the bays and enjoy some of the finest hospitality in Europe. Legendary stories of chefs paid more than the resort’s director, and guests who ordered five kilos of caviar for breakfast are true, RFE/RL’s Balkan Service confirmed in an interview with a former manager.
On the shore of Sveti Stefan today Mary, an American visitor who is staying at a nearby hotel, says of the current situation of the open beaches, “if it’s free to enter then people can ruin this beauty by leaving trash behind,” she says, adding, “no one takes care of things that are free.”
Closing arguments in the legal dispute between the Montenegro state and Adriatic Properties are expected in late July, after which the London court will make its ruling.
