Montenegro's tourism income over €600m

Montenegro earned 620.6 million euros (about 844 million U.S. dollars) from tourism for the first eight months of the year, the officials of the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism announced on Saturday. That number is 1.9 percent higher than that in the same peroid of the previous year. "Only during the first eight months of Montenegro was visited by 1,186,261 tourists, or 2.9 percent more than in the same period last year. It is estimated that data for September shall be twice better than in the comparative period last year," Branimir Gvozdenovic, Minister of Sustainable Development and Tourism, told a press conference on Saturday. Montenegro, the smallest of all the Balkan state with only 600,000 residents, has about 300 km of coastline and five national nature parks. According to the data of the ministry, the number of airplane flights has increased by 16 percent compared to last year, and most tourists were from Serbia, Russia, Germany, Sweden, Czech Republic and Britain. "Good tourist promotion has a decisive effect on the development of tourism, but a significant effect on other choices, including investment decisions," Gvozdenovic added. Tourism revenues account for almost half of the total budget of Montenegro, which this year amounted to 1.23 billion euros. (1 US dollar = 0.74 euro)