Dubrovnik backtracks on fines for wheeled suitcases as luggage ban looms

The Croatian city of Dubrovnik vows to go luggage-free by the end of the year to combat overtourism. Photo / Getty Images

This month the city of Dubrovnik declared war against the wheelie bag and made headlines around the world.

News gained momentum last week that the cobbled city in Croatia would be handing out €265 ($468) fines for tourists using rolling cases in the city. Publications from Lonely Planet to Travel + Leisure jumped on the case. On Monday the Herald also reported the news that the city was updating its rules and its campaign against antisocial tourism - “Respect the City.”

But will you really be fined hundreds of euros for dragging your luggage through Dubrovnik?

This week, local officials dismissed this reporting in media turning to the Dubrovnik Times, the city’s English-language news site.

“The City of Dubrovnik would like to emphasise that this claim is completely untrue,” it published on Tuesday.

The city council said tourists and their roller cases had been led up the proverbial garden path by unchecked international reports to believe “that rolling suitcases will be penalised and fined in Dubrovnik”.

Was the expansion of antisocial tourism rules never the intention or has the city backtracked on wheelie bags?

Launching the revamped campaign along with an animated video on Friday, the city’s mayor Mato Frankovic fronted a media panel on the introduction of new rules.

The video, which is already being shown to guests aboard cruise ships visiting Dubrovnik, introduces a number of rules asking visitors to avoid using roller cases or wearing swimwear in the Old Town.

“Our goal is not to punish them, but to introduce them in a simple way to what is acceptable behaviour in a protected Unesco heritage site,” said mayor Frankovic at the premiere.

The Respect the City - Postujmo Grad - campaign has been running since 2018. The public information campaign targeting the Old Town of Dubrovnik introduced rules and penalty charges for various acts.

“Failure to comply with these rules of conduct will result in a fine”, read the city’s English-language posters.

Noise cancelling: Mayor Mato Frankovic has introduced a series of clampdowns on antisocial tourist behaviour.

Last July the city said it had fined the first two tourists 1000 kuna each ($230), for being improperly dressed.

They were fined under “Article 95 of the Decision on communal order in the area of the City of Dubrovnik”.

The city bylaw asks that those in public places not produce “excessive noise” and to keep them in an “orderly condition”. The city said the fines would serve as a reminder to visitors and that there were multilingual warnings in place.

This wide-ranging clause could be used to target most disorderly tourist behaviour, including malicious clacking of suitcase wheels.

Penalties range from 1000 kuna to 2500 kuna or, as Croatia adopted the euro as an official currency in January this year, €130 to €330.

Respect the City: Dubrovnik started warning tourists against antisocial behaviour last year.

Earlier this week a spokesperson for the City of Dubrovnik said the intention of the video was merely to showcase the kind of behaviour they did not wish to see from tourists.

Making a special appearance on Croatian radio podcast Spica s Macanom, mayor Frankovic distanced himself from the idea of fining tourists, saying that education was more valuable than the penalties.

He congratulated the city for avoiding the kind of antisocial tourism that other cities on the Adriatic attracted, namely neighbouring Split.

US travel magazine Frommers reported the fine as “fake news”, saying the reporting on the supposed “fine” had jumped the gun.

“It was completely plausible that Dubrovnik would come up with this penalty since so many other crowded European tourist destinations have done something similar,” editor-in-chief Jason Cochran told the Herald.

Dubrovnik said it was considering a penalty specific to cases, but the idea was rejected and never implemented. The video shows a wagged finger, but no fines.

Cochran said he was wary of this reporting ahead of any codified fines. Fines that the city now firmly denies.

“The ever-shifting travel rules of the peak of Covid-19 taught me that the only way to be sure of a government policy is [to] see it written on an official webpage or social media account.”

Earlier this year mayor Franković told news outlet Juntarnji that the ban on wheeled luggage was just the beginning. His eventual goal was to remove tourists porting luggage from the city centre entirely.

By the end of the year, the city will have a scheme requiring tourists to have to leave bags at a luggage centre outside the historic city, or pay to have bags portered to their accommodation.

Speaking in May, he said he knew his policies would be controversial.

“Look, this is not an election campaign. Our city needs order, and after all, since I became mayor, I am constantly at war with someone,” he said.

The City of Dubrovnik was contacted for further comment.