Budva Municipality

Budva proves that success can consume what created it. The municipality generates nearly half of Montenegro's annual tourism revenue—€800,000 arrivals producing 5.5 million overnight stays in 2023—while simultaneously destroying the Adriatic coastal character that tourists pay to experience. The math stopped working years ago: 80% of Budva's accommodations are now second homes owned by Russian, Ukrainian, and Turkish buyers rather than functioning tourist facilities. The town became a real estate market that happens to have beaches attached.

The Venetian Republic fortified Budva's old town from 1420 to 1797, building the 15th-century walls that tourists photograph today. For five centuries after Venetian withdrawal, the walled settlement remained small enough that historic architecture dominated the skyline. Then Yugoslavia opened the Adriatic coast to mass tourism in the 1960s and 1970s, and Budva became the testing ground for how many bodies a medieval fishing town could absorb. The 2013 tourism census recorded 668,931 visits and 4.47 million overnight stays—44.8% of all tourist visits to Montenegro concentrated in one municipality. The resident population of roughly 18,000 doubles during peak summer months, straining roads, water supply, and sewage systems designed for permanent populations a quarter that size.

Corrupt permitting accelerated the collapse between 2010 and 2025. Developers covered the municipality in high-rise apartments and hotels—critics describe it as 'drowning in a sea of concrete'—prioritizing construction permits over infrastructure capacity. The 2022 influx of Russian and Ukrainian residents fleeing war pushed housing prices beyond tourism worker affordability, creating the paradox of a tourist destination where service employees cannot afford to live. Budva now processes more tourist volume than its physical systems can handle while converting accommodation stock into investment properties that sit empty except for brief owner visits.

By 2026, Budva faces the classic overshoot pattern: either reduce tourist numbers to sustainable carrying capacity or watch infrastructure failure and environmental degradation drive visitors to less-crowded Adriatic alternatives in Croatia and Albania. The municipality generates too much revenue for Montenegro's government to intervene, creating the tragedy of the commons at national scale—everyone profits from Budva's exploitation until the resource collapses.