Serbia Doesn’t Have a Single Cruise Ship, and It Is Becoming an Increasingly Popular Destination for This Type of Tourism

These days, the cruise ship season opened with the docking in Belgrade and Novi Sad. These were foreign boats exclusively. As the president of the Group for Nautical Tourism and Economy at the Chamber of Commerce of Serbia (CCIS), Petar Djordjevic, says, they are welcome and, each year, the visits of cruise ships to our ports increases with each year. Twenty years ago, we had one dock for cruise ships, and this year, we will have 14.

– As for our country, there are only offers by foreign companies which have cruise ships, because we are the only country in Europe which doesn’t have them, we only have passenger ships for panoramic tours of Belgrade. We don’t have them in Novi Sad, Smederevo, or Golubac either. We only have two tourist boats in Belgrade for panoramic tours and two Belgrade-based companies. One is Jahting Klub Kej, which has three passenger boats and four smaller boats for tours, whereas the other company has the boats Sirena and Horizont, and that’s all we have when it comes to the nautical offer for city tours. We also have the boat Aqua Star, which sails from Belgrade to Djerdap once a week – explains Petar Djordjevic.

On the other hand, he says that we have plenty of boats for cargo transport, because it is the cheapest form of river transport.

– Last year, 15 million tons of goods (oil, ores, coal) were transported by river. Those are capacities which meet the needs of our economy – says Djordjevic.

He adds that we need staff, “which we don’t have at all”, for improving river boat sailing.

– The requirements for getting a title in nautics are very rigid and nobody wants to educate themselves for nautical professions. You need at least seven years to get the title of a nautical captain.

Privredna komora Srbije

Jahting klub Kej doo Beograd

Group for Nautical Tourism and Economy at the Chamber of Commerce of Serbia

Petar Đorđević

cruise ship season

cruise ships in Serbia

cruise ship docks

passenger ships for panoramic tours of Belgrade

tourism boats

Sirena ship

Horizont ship

Aqua Start ship

cargo transport ship

river ship sailing

nautical professions

staff in nautics