Bahamas-based Boka Group is planning to complete a EUR 250mn golf resort project in the Adriatic town of Tivat in Montenegro in 2016, a company official told news service eKapija.

The project includes an 18-hole golf course, residential and business facilities, villas, hotels and shops. Considering its estimated value, the venture will turn into a regional engine for the tourism industry and will employ a large number of people, Boka Group's marketing manager Predrag Sekulic said.

Boka's Royal Montenegro Golf & Country Club project already launched a 3,000 square metres training golf course on Aug 25. The training course is only a small part of the bigger complex that will stretch over 786,800 sq m - only 2 km away from Tivat and close to its international airport.

The 18-hole course will be 1.8 km long and 180 metres wide.

Montenegro still has no golf course but Boka Group is not the only one that vows to build the first one. Swiss-based Orascom Development together with the Montenegrin government is implementing the EUR 1.1bn Lustica Bay luxury tourism project, which covers 6.8 million sq m on the Lustica peninsula. Along with apartments, hotels, a marina and other facilities, Orascom is also planning to build an 18-hole golf course.

Boka Group inherited the golf resort project in early 2013 after taking over Montenegrin firm LPGD, established by Netherlands-based Limon Investments. In Oct 2012, the government in Podgorica awarded a 90-year lease on the 786,800 sq m area to LPGD, which was supposed to carry out the project together with Boka Group. Boka Group co-founder John Kennedy said back then that his company is taking over all obligations of the 90-year lease contract.