Montenegro

This Thursday’s Let’s Travel! Radio show is about Montenegro

New York, 2 June 2010

The UN Foundation and Let’s Travel! Radio have teamed up on a media partnership to educate travelers on World Heritage conservation and responsible travel. This week’s Let’s Travel! Radio show “Marvelous Montenegro” features the World Heritage and sustainable tourism in Montenegro, including: the beautiful Bay of Kotor with its UNESCO World Heritage sites of Perast, the Mediterranean port of Kotor and Durmitor National Park and its canyon plateau Komarnica, Budva Riviera with its wild nightlife and the wild nature of the Dinaric Alps.

This Thursday’s special guests talking about tourism and “wild nature, wild beaches and wild nightlife” are:

Arthur Pedersen, Programme Specialist for World Heritage Sites, UNESCO
Laura Stijović, Project Manager for Promotion of Tourism in Montenegro, UNESCO
Borko Vulikić, Project Manager for Protected Areas Systems and Hot Spots Remediation, UNDP Montenegro
Milica Begović-Radojević, Environment and Economy Cluster Leader, UNDP Montenegro

The show runs every Thursday at 12-1pm (ET/US), with an Encore broadcast every Saturday at 6pm (ET, US) at www.nytalkradio.net. Podcasts are available on the homepage of www.letstravelradio.com, and are featured on www.iTunes.com  and www.PodcastAlley.com. The Let’s Travel! website currently attracts about 200,000 visitors a month and is growing through blog and social networking outreach to promote each show.
  
Some excerpts from the “Marvelous Montenegro” show:
 
“Montenegro has a lot of incredible natural resources that act as unique selling points from the perspective of tourism that the country is now trying to utilize in order to capture the growing market, especially in terms of LOHAS - life of health and sustainability. We have seen in the last few years that 85-90% tourists visit the south of Montenegro. What we as the UN have tried to do is to help the communities and the villages in the North lure some of these tourists in-land, because that type of tourism is really chic in the world of eco-tourism and adventure tourism. From that prospective, people who come from abroad and come to visit the North would be able to come on a tour and visit an abandoned mine which is famous for the forged silver coins that king Uroš made and that earned him a place in Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy.” – Milica Begovic Radojevic, UNDP Environment and Economy Cluster Leader.

“Montenegro has two world heritage sites, one natural – Durmitor Park and one cultural – Kotor. These are outstanding places and tourism is an important factor in the management of the sites, as well as an important ingredient for economies in the region and the country itself. The Government of Montenegro has for the last years been really involved in creating policies for sustainability, particularly in the tourism field. They have done a good job in drafting a strategy to promote the country at the eco-tourism markets, and at the very specialized markets such as mountain-biking, rafting, etc.. UNESCO is trying to make the links between the local communities and the protected areas people, so that they have skills and tools to be more engaged in the market and hopefully to have more spill-over effect for the local communities.” - Arthur Pedersen, UNESCO Programme Specialist for World Heritage Sites. 

“Tara River Canyon is the second largest canyon in the world and the largest one in Europe. It is an underestimation to say it is really beautiful.  Probably around one third of the population of the villages and communities around the Tara River are directly supported by the eco system services. From this perspective World Heritage in the North gains even more value. Rafting on Tara River – it’s one of these things you have to do in life. And the biggest lake in Balkans is situated in Montenegro – Skadar Lake. It is impressive, not only because of the eco-system which is very particular and very well preserved, but also all the activities surrounding the lake and the natural landscape are impressive.” - Laura Stijović, UNESCO Project Manager.

“Natural beauty of my country is breath taking and it cannot be described in words - you have to come and visit it. There are many monuments that prove that the area of Kotor was a very important cultural center. It is very well preserved in a very beautiful natural context. You have many beautiful churches and each one of them has a long history and a story behind it.” – Borko Vulikic, UNDP Project Manager for Protected Areas Systems and Hot Spots Remediation.

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Let’s Travel! is a live, global radio talk show in which Host Susan Raphael and Producer Michael Zufolo invite listeners to explore the world of travel and culture. These segments may highlight information about Niche Museums in various cities, travel tips, Streetsmart advice or films that give viewers a “taste” of other countries.