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In 1909, the »Limited Company for Buildings and Traffic Herceg Novi« required a permit to build hotel “BOKA” in downtown Herceg Novi. They begun the building in 1913, having 43 rooms and “central heating and hot baths”. For years, this hotel has been a symbol and the city’s trademark. However, it was severly damaged in the catastrophic 1979 earthquake. It was torn down the following year.
In the period between the two World Wars, there were many hotels in Herceg Novi, such as “Amerika”, “Rudnik”, “Jadran”, “Balkan”, “Savina”, “Evropa”, “Topola”,“Erceg Novi”, “Srpski hotel”, “Beograd”...In year 1926, hotel “Plaža” opened its doors to guests. It was the property of the family Trani and it was close to its present location.
In year 1906, Tomo M. Katurić received a permit to own an inn in Kamenari, and in 1929, the family Janković opened the hotel “Igalo” in Igalo. In Zelenika, besides the already mentioned hotel “Plaža”, hotel “Boka”, owned by Obren Dunđerović, was fully operational until Germans blew it up during their retreat in 1944. Zelenika offered another hotel “Boka” owned by Blagoje Mićunović. The tourist association “Savina” in Herceg Novi, which operates to this day, was founded in 1922, while today’s tourist association “Igalo”, then called “Tamaris”, was founded in 1927.
In early 1929, the Herceg Novi municipality was proclaimed a “sea resort and climatic health center” since from long ago it has been known to have a healing sea mud called “igaljsko blato” (Igalo mud) and mineral water springs called »igaljske slatine« (Igalo water springs). In time, along with Igalo developing, the term “climatic health center” ceased to be in use. The already mentioned hotel “Igalo”, having 16 rooms and 40 beds, was built precisely on the location where present Institute Igalo is (1st building) and even at that time, they had a hotel car picking up guests at the dock or at the “Gruda” airport. In 1930, the researching of the Igalo mud in laboratoriesof the French spa Vichy was completed, and it was confirmed that the Igalo mud had distinct healing characteristics. However, it was only after the World War II that, thanks to dr. Svetozar ŽIVOJNOVIĆ, the idea to establish a spa in Igalo was put in action. The government of Montenegro brought a decree on November 1, 1949 to finally found a spa.
The fact that in 1935 there were 8 hotels and a holiday hostel operating throughout the entire year, and all due to having heating in the winter, verifies that tourism in the municipality of Herceg Novi was at an outstanding level in years between
the two World Wars. The accommodation tax was already introduced in 1919 and it was under “a strict control on the basis of current regulations for the Zeta county«.... The first congress took place in Herceg Novi in May 1939, which later on became one of the hubs of congress tourism. That was the 4th Yugoslav congress on tuberculosis.
Intensive and organized development of tourism in this region is linked to 1960’s when almost all the nowadays existing hotels were built. At that time, they were very large and modern. The only two hotels built later on are today’s hotel “Plaža” and the Mediterranean Health Center in Igalo.
Today there are 19 hotels in the municipality.
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