Every year, second-year BSc Tourism students travel abroad for the International Field Project (IFP), where classrooms are exchanged for real destinations, local communities, and hands-on research. Last year, our students travelled to Montenegro, making the journey as sustainably as possible by train, bus and ferry, before spending two weeks conducting fieldwork in destinations across the country.
One of the research groups focused on the southern coastal towns of Bar and Ulcinj, where they explored an increasingly important question for tourism destinations around the world: how vulnerable is tourism to climate change, and how prepared are destinations to respond?
Tourism is a vital part of Montenegro’s economy, and Bar and Ulcinj are becoming increasingly popular thanks to their beautiful beaches, historic towns, rich biodiversity and growing range of outdoor activities. But these same attractions are also becoming more exposed to climate-related risks. Through a tourism value chain analysis, the students investigated how climate change affects every stage of the visitor experience, from transport and accommodation to restaurants, local businesses and attractions.
Over two weeks, the team interviewed hotel owners, tour operators, local entrepreneurs, environmental organisations, firefighters, government representatives and community members. Alongside these interviews, they carried out field observations and analysed local policies to better understand how climate risks are already shaping tourism in the region. A very interesting experience for them was joining an Environmental day event with local NGOs and students, in which they listened to lectures, got interactive and informative tours and even got to volunteer by contributing to a collective beach clean-up.
Their findings show that climate change is no longer something destinations can prepare for “one day.” Stakeholders described increasingly frequent heatwaves, droughts, flooding, wildfires, coastal erosion and pressure on water resources, all of which are already affecting tourism businesses, infrastructure and visitor experiences. Tour guides explained how extreme heat changes excursion schedules, while environmental organisations pointed to the growing vulnerability of wetlands, beaches and biodiversity.
At the same time, the research paints a hopeful picture. Throughout Bar and Ulcinj, local communities, NGOs, schools and tourism businesses are finding ways to work together. Whether through environmental education, community clean-up initiatives or informal collaboration between local businesses, these partnerships show the important role that local knowledge and cooperation can play in creating more resilient destinations. However, the study also found that stronger destination-wide coordination and long-term planning are needed to help the tourism sector adapt to future climate challenges.
Beyond the findings themselves, this project really shows what makes the International Field Project such a valuable learning experience. By working directly with local stakeholders, students gained first-hand insight into the complexity of tourism development and experienced how global challenges, such as climate change, are reflected in the everyday realities of destinations.
Curious to learn more about their research? Read the full paper here!
You can also watch the video about it here!
