Sveti Stefan,
the symbol of Montenegrin tourism
Svetlana Popović Vujotić
Tourism
What Paris is to France, Rome to Italy, New York to America, or Dubrovnik to Croatia — that is what Sveti Stefan is to Montenegro. We may not have the Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum, or the Statue of Liberty, but we have nature, and we have ourselves. Perhaps there was more of both yesterday than there is today, and tomorrow there may be even less, yet the fact remains that there are rare authentic traces of this unique unity which, over time, become more recognizable symbols of the country they belong to than the country itself. Naturally, this does not threaten the status of our shared home; on the contrary, it strengthens it through a powerful mechanism of promotion in a sea of strong competition — provided that those who make decisions, and those who elect them, understand this.
We spoke about Sveti Stefan — the recipient of the “Tourism Oscar” — its timeless value and importance for Montenegro, as well as the past and present challenges that have failed to erase it from the map of the most recognizable symbols of both global and Montenegrin tourism, with one of the most respected Yugoslav and Montenegrin tourism professionals, Branko “Diki” Kažanegra.
Our interlocutor is a man of clear and firm convictions, backed by decades of education, work, and dedication to the advancement of tourism in Montenegro.
He began his professional career at HTP “Sveti Stefan” in 1968, from where he left in 1972, while serving as director, to the United States as a Fulbright Foundation scholar. He completed his postgraduate studies in tourism marketing at Michigan State University. After returning to Sveti Stefan, he served as Assistant Director for Marketing at HTP “Montenegroturist.” He later continued his career at Kompas in Ljubljana, and from 1982 onward served as Director of Montenegroexpress. In the early 1990s, he moved to the private sector, where he worked in the travel agency business until his retirement.
Branko – Diki Kažanegra
Argument: What did Montenegrin tourism look like before and after Sveti Stefan became part of its tourism offer?
Kažanegra : There was tourism in Montenegro even before Sveti Stefan, but with the exception of Dubrovnik, tourism along the southern Adriatic was largely of the socialist-era trade union type.
Apart from a few hotels on the coast, everything else consisted of holiday resorts and campsites. It was only after the transformation of the Miločer Castle into a hotel and the opening of Sveti Stefan that people began to view tourism as an economic activity capable of making a significant contribution to the economic development of Montenegro — and not only Montenegro.
Immediately after opening in the early 1960s, Sveti Stefan became an essential feature in virtually every printed tourist guide in our country, as well as abroad. Soon afterward, famous figures from the worlds of politics, film, literature, business, and sports began visiting Sveti Stefan. There was hardly a week when “Svetac,” as we affectionately called it, was not hosting someone from the then-renowned publication *Who’s Who in the World*.
Argument : Was it difficult to achieve a consensus — primarily with the Paštrovići people, whose historical seat and center had once been Sveti Stefan — and make the decision to transform it into a hotel?
Kažanegra : Sveti Stefan was not built for comfortable living, but rather as a place of refuge and shelter from enemies. It was a place of justice, where the Paštrovići assembly, known as the Bankada, convened.
During World War II, the occupying forces used it as a prison, and after the war, during the Informbiro period, it served as a labor camp. Many of the houses had been abandoned, and only eight families were still using their homes for living.
The initial idea of the Montenegrin leadership at the time was to use political prisoners to restore the ruined and neglected houses so they could be turned into a kind of artists’ colony.
While staying at the Miločer Castle, which at the time was used as a retreat for high-ranking officials, Edvard Kardelj — a practical-minded Slovenian — looked at Sveti Stefan and suggested that, instead of becoming an artists’ colony, it should be turned into a hotel. The Paštrovići wholeheartedly embraced the idea, seeing in it an opportunity for employment.
The families who had lived in the Old Town were provided with new houses along the coast, which at the time were considered highly luxurious and are still used today by their owners and their guests. The Church was allowed to continue using its properties without interference.
Sveti Stefan, 1965.g.
Argument : Was this a major challenge in traditional Montenegro, and can we say that the emergence of the tourism brand “Sveti Stefan” was also a kind of cultural turning point?
Kažanegra : The transformation of Sveti Stefan into a hotel-town was a successful project. The state gained a prestigious brand that was soon ranked among the world’s leading hotels. The local Paštrovići population gained employment opportunities, as well as the chance to study and further their education both at home and abroad. By the end of the 1960s, more than ninety percent of the managerial and professional staff consisted of local residents.
Those of us who worked there, as well as our families, saw it as our own town — which, in fact, it truly was, because once it had protected us, and now it provided for us. No one drew maps or marked paths telling us where and how we could approach it, and only as far as the gate.
The opening of Sveti Stefan was a cultural shock. Overnight, we “jumped” from socialist realism into the jet set. In the parking lot, alongside a few Fićas, Cadillacs, Ferraris, Porsches, and Rolls-Royces suddenly appeared. On the beach there were bikinis, while on the terrace there were tuxedos, ball gowns, diamonds, the scents of expensive perfumes, and Cuban cigars. It did not take long before skirts became shorter, rising above the knees, Borosana shoes were replaced by high-heeled sandals, trousers by jeans, and rubber boots by shiny dress shoes.
A Typical Dinner at Sveti Stefan
Argument : Did Sveti Stefan, in fact, open the door to a new era of our tourism in every respect?
Kažanegra : Through the doors opened by Sveti Stefan, together with fashion and music, came a whole new culture of living in every aspect. In one word — the world. Its more developed, educated, and wealthier part arrived in Montenegro.
Although Montenegro was considered one of the more conservative parts of the former Yugoslavia, it very quickly, despite prevailing prejudices, embraced tourism as one of its most important development opportunities. Hotels began to be built in nearly every coastal town, and by the late 1960s and early 1970s, the number of hotel beds had already reached 10,000.
A little later, tourism once again shocked a part of our society with the idea of nudism at Ada Bojana. That shock, however, quickly passed.
My best man from Ulcinj, Džo Abazović, used to say that nudism at Ada Bojana removed more veils in a month than all the Party propaganda had managed to do since the war.
The Famous Cold Buffet at the “Sveti Stefan” Hotel
Argument : What did it mean at the time — not only in the domestic but also in the international public eye — to work at the “Sveti Stefan” hotel?
Kažanegra : Working at Sveti Stefan was a privilege. It was a window into the wider world. My best man, the late Ljubo Anđus, who was then the head of reception, and I were officially in Berlin when the Red Brigades kidnapped a famous businessman, causing the airport to be locked down. Everyone was being checked and roughly searched by special forces officers.
However, when the officer took our passports, he looked at us and simply said, “Sveti Stefan,” after which he allowed us to pass without being searched.
Argument : What was the fate of “Svetac” later on, during the turbulent historical upheavals in the Balkans?
Kažanegra : The first and greatest victim of the economic sanctions in the early 1990s was precisely Sveti Stefan. Once it lost the guests who had been an integral part of its fame, it began to lose its shine. The greatest contribution to this decline came from the notorious “Gazda Jezda,” who turned it into a gathering place for the “elite” of a new generation. Unfortunately, Sveti Stefan was never able to recover from that.
With the lifting of the sanctions, we slowly began returning to the tourism market as a destination, but this time not to the Western European and American markets — from which the guests of Sveti Stefan had once come — but rather to the markets of Russia and Eastern Europe, to whom Sveti Stefan did not mean very much.
Budvanska Rivijera, like the entire Montenegrin tourism sector, did not have enough capital to invest in the restoration of Sveti Stefan, so the search began for a partner who could do so.
In the end, “Aman” was chosen — a world-renowned brand, but in my opinion one that was incompatible with the concept of Sveti Stefan, due to their precisely defined business policy in which the guest and the guest’s privacy take priority over the exclusivity of the location where the hotel is situated.
Sveti Stefan is an inseparable part of our history, culture, and tradition. If they wanted it without the Paštrovići people and without our people who gave it its soul, they could have copied it and built it on one of the many rocky islets along the Adriatic. Instead, they simply amputated it, even though Sveti Stefan became a brand precisely because it was open and visible.
As a tourist, I visited the White House in America, Windsor and Buckingham Palace in England, yet today I cannot visit our own Sveti Stefan — to whose fame I contributed, if only in the smallest way. My children once could, but sadly, my grandchildren no longer can.
Argument : It has been announced that an agreement has been reached with the leaseholder and that Sveti Stefan will continue its mission this summer, in the year when Montenegro marks 20 years since the restoration of its independence. What is your view on the years-long inactivity of the recipient of the world’s most prestigious tourism award, the “Golden Apple,” and on the final decision and settlement agreement between the Government and the leaseholder of the “Sveti Stefan” hotel and “Villa Miločer”?
Kažanegra : Sveti Stefan looks sad with its shutters closed, as if it had — as we would say in our local way — passed away. I have the impression, though I would very much like to be wrong, that the leaseholders’ main interest was not Sveti Stefan itself, but rather the opportunity to build commercial properties in Miločer Park. Once that possibility was brought into question, the leaseholders’ interest in Sveti Stefan also disappeared, and they merely sought a reason to withdraw from the business with the largest possible financial compensation.
A padlock was placed on the doors of Sveti Stefan, and arbitration proceedings were initiated seeking enormous damages.
What is happening now — I do not know. The negotiations are secret, and I fear that once again something may turn out to be “good,” but only for a small number of privileged individuals.
For those involved in this project, Sveti Stefan is merely a business. For us Paštrovići, it is a matter of identity — one of the fundamental human rights guaranteed to every person — and that had to be, and still must be, taken into consideration.
Argument : In the meantime, a ban on further construction in Miločer Park has been announced — except for projects that had already been planned and previously approved — along with its designation as a protected cultural heritage site, something the local residents had been demanding for years.
Considering that “Aman” was the first major international brand to arrive in Montenegro in 2007, could its departure before the expiration of the contract term have a negative impact on Montenegro’s image?
Kažanegra : When it comes to Aman, there is no doubt — it is a world-renowned brand. However, things should be clarified: Aman is not the leaseholder of Sveti Stefan. I assume that the leaseholder merely contracts them for hotel management services, and that Aman has no connection whatsoever with the construction plans in Miločer Park. Logically, I conclude that it was the leaseholder — not Aman — who decided to put the padlock on the doors.
After the reconstruction carried out by the leaseholder and the reopening of Sveti Stefan, one of Aman’s directors invited several of us former executives to dinner. I asked him why, in all of their promotional messages, Aman always came first, followed only afterward by Sveti Stefan and Montenegro. His reply was: “Aman is the bigger brand.”
I said then — and I still believe it today — that Sveti Stefan is the greater and more important brand for Montenegro. I said it was like attending the Oscars and considering the brand of the dress worn by the Oscar winner more important than the winner’s own name.
It goes without saying that the possible departure of Aman from Montenegro would have certain negative consequences, but Sveti Stefan would remain.
A View of Sveti Stefan from Miločer Park
Argument : Sveti Stefan as a Powerful Tool for the Promotion of Montenegro?
Kažanegra : For years, Sveti Stefan was the leader of our tourism industry. Back then, it was a state project, and in my opinion, it should become one again. No number of Alabars, nor the entire construction industry, can make it newer or better.
Sveti Stefan should be what it has always been — the flagship of Montenegrin tourism. Everything that Montenegro has to offer at its very best should be presented there. It should, as it once was, be opened to the world, and not reserved only for a small selected few. Only then will everyone in Montenegro, and especially Montenegrin tourism, truly benefit. It should not be overshadowed by another brand. It was, and remains, a brand in its own right. After all, if that were not the case, would it have hosted countless world-famous personalities and received so many prestigious awards using only domestic knowledge and resources?
Argument : Your extensive experience and achievements throughout decades of work in tourism make you highly qualified to assess the current situation in this sector in Montenegro.
Kažanegra : Ever since I graduated in 1968, I have been in tourism. I started out thinking I would do it only until something better came along — and to this day, nothing better has appeared. I have not been actively involved for the past few years, so now I serve as an informal advisor to my children and to colleagues in the company.
While I was actively involved, I advocated for Montenegro to have a Ministry of Tourism, given the importance of tourism to the country. Now I realize I was wrong. Montenegro needs a tourism government.
