The digital age has brought a lot of relief when it comes to working from home, and the situation caused by the coronavirus has further accentuated this type of business. According to some estimates, there were almost five million digital nomads in the world before the pandemic. There are now four times as many, and research predicts that by 2035, a billion people will work remotely.
The Government of Montenegro has recognized this trend and is currently preparing a Program to attract digital nomads in the desire to make Montenegro a globally attractive destination for them, which will greatly contribute to further development of tourism, IT sector, and overall economic activity in our country.
Kach Medina Howe – a travel blogger from the Philippines, who has been living the life of a digital nomad since 2013, was a guest today at CODE on Meet-up: Montenegro – Destination for digital nomads. As someone who visited 146 countries, she fell in love with the beauties of Montenegro and settled in Herceg Novi, and she was able to convey to the interested participants what it looks like when the whole world is your office, as well as how adapted Montenegro is for the residence and work of digital nomads. Kach is the director of Two Monkeys Tours & Immigration Service, the ambassador of Digital Nomad Nations, as well as the founder of Montenegro Digital Nomads and Remote Workers Group.
According to Kach, digital nomads can significantly contribute to Montenegro by increasing economic growth, creating new jobs, improving IT infrastructure, creating a new generation of digital skills, revitalizing urban and rural areas, as well as creating new investment opportunities.
Kach believes that Montenegro has a great predisposition to be the choice of digital nomads, such as – relatively low cost of living, fast and cheap internet, beautiful nature, low crime rate, favorable tax rates for residents and business owners, etc, but also we face great challenges if we want to become a globally attractive location.
One of the key challenges we will have to overcome concerns the introduction of a visa for digital nomads, which would allow them to stay in the country for a year. The competition is fierce and countries around the world are competing to start introducing these visas as soon as possible, to grab a part of the new, fast-growing market.
The meeting gathered a large number of participants, including representatives of the Ministry of Public Administration, Digital Society and Media, representatives of the Municipality of Niksic, NGOs, coworkers, owners of coworking spaces in Montenegro, and the interested public, as well as regional partners of IEC Tehnopolis.
Today’s event was a great introduction to the Cross-border coworking conference, which will be held in early October in Budva, and which will bring together regional coworking managers, coworkers, digital nomads, freelancers, regional and global experts, and relevant organizations and institutions that can work together to improve the business environment of the cross-border area.
The event was organized within the 2CODE project, which is co-financed through ERDF and IPA II funds of the European Union, within the Interreg IPA CBC Croatia – Bosnia and Herzegovina – Montenegro 2014 – 2020.
