Prime Minister Edi Rama meets with tourism entrepreneur in the town of Shengjin to discuss the 2018 tourism season:

Prime Minister Edi Rama: First I would like to specify something since Blendi (Minister of Tourism and Environment) runs high when it comes to figures. The government’s aim is to attract 10 million international tourists a year by 2025. If this goal is met by 2021, hope you reach great heights of success, but the target is to attract 10 million foreign visitors by 2025. Meanwhile, I would like to give the floor to two friends I met today and really congratulate and even take this opportunity to personally advertise live on TV their newly-built “Prince” hotel. I am really amazed at their investment and everything I already saw. But at the same time, I am also really impressed with what I heard about the future plans, the challenge they face in their efforts to recruit and train their staff, because the tourism’s main challenge after all are not the hotel buildings but the quality of service. Of course this would be the case to share with you and the broad public the daily difficulties in the efforts to find right people willing to take up a job.

The average wage for workers in a considerable part of the tourism and hospitality infrastructure across the country is relatively high. But this industry faces a serious problem which is commonplace not only in Albania’s tourism infrastructure, which is still in its early stages, but also in Montenegro and Croatia, which has made the labour market really competitive. So, without asking for your permission first, I will give the floor to two business partners, one from Puka and the other from Tropoja. You can guess the intensity between the two which is best and fantastically materialized in this investment. You decide who is going to address this meeting first.

Entrepreneur: First of all, I would like to express my appreciation to the Prime Minister for taking time from his busy schedule to meet with us. Normally, a Prime Minister could have been on holiday in August, but he took time to travel to Shengjin and meet with us. We all thank the Prime Minister and the cabinet members for coming. I run a construction company operating for over 25 years in the construction industry, but this year we decided to expand our business to tourism industry. We see tourism as the future of the Albanian economy. We don’t produce Mercedes-Benz cars as they are manufacture by Germany, but yet we can provide services to the Mercedes manufacturers. I think Albanian economy will orient towards tourism and leisure industry in the future.

You know quite well our concerns and the problems we deal with on daily basis. The labour force remains a major concern. We have employed 145 people with an average salary ranging from 40 000 to over 250 000 lek a month. We have launched due procedures for recruiting the new staff, announcing first the vacancies. However, finding qualified candidates and skilled employees has been one of the most important stages of the process although we had launched such procedures around three months ahead of the summer tourist season. The hotel was inaugurated in June 1, but we started paying and training our employees in March.

One can randomly hear people saying there are no new jobs in Albania today. That is absolutely not true. I am saying this not because the Prime Minister is here today, but because the entrepreneurship and business community, investors in tourism and other sectors face a serious challenge. Albania’s unemployment would have stood at a zero rate today. I have already announced over 50 vacancies via the social media and the national employment service. Our company offers an average salary of 60 000 lek, but finding the right candidates and skilled workers have turned out to be an extreme challenge. I am talking about the skilled workers. This is our main difficulty. However, in the winter season, we plan to turn this facility into a kind of vocational training school so that next season we employ some more qualified personnel. I take this opportunity to call upon young people to apply for a job position in our business.

Entrepreneur: Thank you Mr Prime Minister for visiting the town of Shengjin several times. This is the first year tourism industry is really feeling the hand of the state. I would like to express deep appreciation for your personal and government’s support. This year is one of the most successful ones for the tourism, travel and leisure industry here in Shengjin thanks to the close and fruitful cooperation with the state institutions. Public order and safety have been at their best like never before. Regular power supply was provided during the season in Shengjin. As my business partner stated, finding the right skilled worker to fill the vacancies in our business has been really difficult, but we hope to move forward.

Entrepreneur: Greetings Mr. Prime Minister! Thank you for consistently insisting in improvement of the tour operators work. The only thing I expected today was to see you slightly more sporty, but anyway your and the cabinet members’ presence is very encouraging to all of us. This time they insisted on providing lifeguard towers that we initially considered them to be useless. But I am telling you that lifeguards prevented drownings and other dangers in four cases during this season in my hotel only. I am pretty sure it has happened at other beach parts too. Thanks to your perseverance, these lifesaving towers are now in place, but of course there is a need to set them on a much more professional level and make them more effective.

We all notice a stronger presence of the state structures, something which has really been the main drawback both in terms of controlling the territory and implementing the rules. Colleagues have noticed that the work of the police has improved. Yet a lot remains to be done when it comes the control of the territory, especially regarding the so-called sand owners. We were forced to pay for the beach area in front of our hotels.

I would like to congratulate and encourage our colleague for the new hotel he has built. The hand of the state is increasingly being felt here. I know you already have ambitious and major tourism investment plans, but it largely depends on funding. I know you are quite aware of the problems and challenges the business community faces here. The access road to Shengjin is currently in a poor condition and it is definitely a bad advertisement. We are looking forward to seeing this road built. A great job has been done in building promenades but they need to extend further up. New construction activity is going on down the promenade, but also here in this area. A new project to extend the promenade is needed in order to expand the spatial density of tourism infrastructure towards other parts of the beach. We know this part will progressively develop to fit a tourist elite, but we expect you to proceed with the development plans and encourage construction of other five-star hotels like the one Deda has built here.

A solution should be found to tackle the issue of the so-called “sand owners” as they represent a serious obstacle to the government plans for tourism development. Shengjin also needs a boat port as an increasing number of speedboats and other sailing vessels are visiting the area. They represent an important source of revenue. I also know you are already aware of the coastal erosion problem. We are losing significant shoreline stretches due to erosion. I know it requires significant funding, but we hope that a rock barrier is built in order to protect the Kune beach.

I am a well-wisher and supporter of your government. However, I am not a servile and I would like to highlight few things that are not going well. The tax administration often does completely the opposite to what you say. I expect the tax administration inspectors not to misconduct and behave aggressively by inspecting businesses three or four times a day. Often they do exactly the opposite to what you say. All businesses should pay taxes. The six percent tax rate is very low. We are grateful for imposing such a low tax rate, but the tax administration should respect the law.

Local authorities are to be found nowhere. The cabinet members and central government officials visit the area often, but local authorities and municipal officials seem to be inexistent. Tourism, the beaches and tourist attractions do not belong to the Socialist Party, but they are a common asset of all citizens. We pay regularly municipal tariffs and taxes and the municipality has 800 or 1000 employees in its payrolls. The taxpayers’ money goes to pay for salaries and benefits for the municipality employees who work in three shifts.  I don’t know whether there is a criterion on the number of municipal employees according to the number of the population, or whether it should hire every party militant. Thank you!

Entrepreneur: Greetings! As a tour operator, I also manage a chain of hotels. We have no more than 250 workers, normally skilled ones. I would like to congratulate the Prime Minister for his frequent visits to promote tourism development. It is probably the first time we directly communicate, although we keep regular communication with the Minister of Tourism. If we were to talk about a sustainable tourism industry, this year has been the most successful one than the all previous years combined. Tour operators and hotels have recorded an increase of 20 to 30 percent. It is critically important to prolong the tourist season and implement a number of actions to build an all-year-round tourist season, since it is easily to fully book hotels at the high summer season. Therefore, a number of actions, including a stronger promotion of tourism industry is needed. I mean, the Ministry of Tourism should allocate a bigger budget to support tourism promotion and marketing events. The National Tourism Agency’s budget is equal to the half of the funding that Dubrovnik provides for promotion activities only. I think the funding needs to be reviewed. A stronger cooperation with the vocational education system is also needed. We won’t be able to run our businesses without the true professionals, skilled workers, waters and chefs.

I would like to publicly express my appreciation for the government’s decision to cut the Value Added Tax on tourism and four and five-star hotels to a six percent rate. But a crucial link in the whole chain is missing. That is the local government which I think it is in a catastrophic situation. I am talking about the coastal town of Velipoja. Not a single road has been paved over the past 27 years in the area. As for the road infrastructure, I think we should really consider projects to improve most frequented roads by tourists.

Hotel manager: Greetings! Along with the significant increase in the tourist numbers this year it is worth of mentioning the fact that the number of days tourists can stay has also increased, because Albania is still a country with the lowest average amount of days visitors stay, which has increased considerably this year. Foreign tourists mainly from the eastern countries stay for almost 3 to 4 weeks. As for our hotel staff, for a second consecutive year, we hire our personnel through cooperation with the vocational school of Tourism and Hotel Management in Tirana. We have established a successful cooperation with the Tourism and Hotel Management school, allowing us to employ a highly-skilled staff during the whole season. Perhaps it is not the case, but transferring the vocational training education schools under the Ministry of Finance was a step backward considering the good work that has been already done. However, our hotel has made the best of its cooperation with the vocations schools. Thank you!

PM Edi Rama: Thank you very much for your contribution and expressing your opinion. First of all, as for those being surprised at my outfit. The very day when you no longer are surprised by my cloths then I should do another job since this is the only thing to entertain myself and the rest is work and work only.

Secondly, we are not here to announce the end of the summer tourist season as it will continue for some more weeks. We are not here either to take stock of successes, but to dot the i’s on what has worked properly, what could be really seen as a success during this season and what to keep in mind as a lesson learned during the upcoming season.

For this reason, I would like to thank each and every one of you for highlighting the fact that I have visited the area several times and we have maintained contacts throughout the year. But we will continue to be in touch, because no matter how it may look like on the screen, no matter how such meetings can be commented on by those to whom making comments is like the air they breathe often unware of what they say, we learn a lot from these meetings and meetings and conversations.

Third, what we said at the very start of the summer tourist season was that we aimed to ensure our tourist destinations, our beaches are clean, secure and safer and sustainably managed; we aimed to ensure that more entertainment opportunities and cultural events are provided to domestic and foreign holidaymakers and visitors alike. And I believe, this year we had the cleanest and safest tourist season since tourism started in our country. Certainly, the season was marred by a series of problems too. One of the major problems is how to intensify and improve quality of cooperation with the local government authorities.

You voiced criticism against the municipality and the local government authorities here in Lezha. I don’t want to engage in controversy and debate with heads of municipalities, because I want to say something else too. Despite the fact you are right about what you say, because you are here and I just agree about what you all already said, but you should also bear in mind that at this stage and during the high tourist season the municipal capacities have remained unchanged, whereas the number of people and the waste increases significantly.

Therefore, given their capacities, we can’t expect the municipalities to successfully manage and cope with the tourist season on their own without cooperating with the central government structures. The problem is when the municipalities lack readiness, willingness and energies to cooperate. But we are not to talk about this issue.

However, if you have noticed, based also on the visitors’ findings and opinions, we have maintained continued contacts with various groups of tourists and we have received a much smaller number of complaints about cleanliness compared to previous years, but we are aware that a lot remain to be done.

Secondly, with regards to safety and public order, this year recorded the most positive figures.  The country would have recorded the lowest murder rate this year if it wasn’t for the Vlora tragedy, where eight people were killed in a hallucinatory massacre. The State Police have also been very effective in preventing and tackling petty crimes, which have been a cause for great concern not long time ago. As far as I can remember, the first problem raised by Mark and his colleagues here were the hotel robbers. We have found out that this problem has been addressed effectively.

Likewise, if we were to consider the number of those who have received care service at the health care centres specially set up to improve and strengthen the healthcare support system for tourists, we can say this system has worked quite well.

This year also marked the first tourist season when the acoustic pollution has been no longer a problem, except some of sporadic cases, but certain measures have been imposed to restrict night-time noise and such measures have been implemented successfully ensuring acoustic pollution-free holidays. This year also marked a problem-free season regarding the dangerous watercrafts and jet skis, which used to sail among holidaymakers, seriously threatening the children’s and holidaymakers’ lives. Certain areas for their use had been defined and no incidents have been reported. This year’s tourist season also featured a rich calendar of cultural and sports events along the country’s entire coastline, as well as in other tourist destinations, but a lot remain to be done in this respect.

So, in this regard, our objectives have been addressed and we can say that they are implemented to a reasonable extent, even though we are still at an early stage in this aspect.

The road infrastructure remains a wound yet to be healed. Due to procedural rules and reasons, we failed to speed up the road construction project in this area, but I believe it will complete within next month of September. We refrained from launching construction works on that side, since we could cause a bigger chaos that the bumpy road itself triggers during the tourist season. The construction of road to Shengjin will complete soon, but we are seeking to push forward our ambition and launch works on construction of the road linking Shengjin and Velipoja. The road will also link the entire area with Montenegro and shorten the travel time to less than 30 minutes and it will allow the area to benefit from the tourist influx to Montenegro as an ever increasing number of tourists are seeking to come over and explore this part of the coast in different periods of the season. But not only that. The road will also provide more opportunities to tap the area’s tourist potential.

Although it has nothing to do with tourism, I can’t help but mention the fact that we are about to finalize another infrastructure project on construction of Torovica road which has become a gangrene. Construction works are set to kick off along with the construction of Milot-Balldren road segment. Infrastructure projects will be soon underway in the area between Shkoder and Muriqan. At the same time, we are committed to start construction of the Thumana – Kashar highway. You are seeing for yourself that the Milot road junction is being completely transformed and indeed we had to redesign the project from scratch. The project includes the highway and other 12 kilometres of access roads. In its current conditions, the highway is a threat to people’s lives. It has taken a lot of work to design road infrastructure projects. Practically, the Milot road junction has been built from scratch.

I believe that with these qualitative developments underway, thanks to these investors and through these investments, we will definitely have a significant increase in terms of revenue and payment capacities. People here keep complaining about employment, but on the other hand businesses complain too that they fail in finding skilled workers. So there is a huge gap with jobless people and jobseekers unable to offer the right skills the employers need and the employers who desperately want to hire workers but they are unable to find the right and skilled ones.

Here, in this hotel, and I believe it is no longer a secret, the hotel manager is a lady who has returned from the United States to work as a hotel manager, earning a bigger salary than I do.  This hotel pays its workers a minimum salary of 400 000 lek and the monthly pay ranges from a minimum of 400 000 lek to 800 000 and 2.5 million lek, relatively high salaries compared to the region itself. Therefore, we need to do a lot more in terms of training and qualifying the labour force and I agree that we should focus not only on vocational schools, but also on vocational training programs.

Two more last things. We certainly need to extend the tourist season. Supporting investment projects like this hotel here, I believe will ensure an all-year-round season. I am also convinced that the experience being developed here will spread along the whole area of Lezha. Meanwhile, I have already signed a directive, calling for an investigation and criminal procedure regarding the properties along the entire sand stretch in Lezha coast. We will expropriate these owners of sand because nowhere there are to be found owners of the sand and at the same time we will penalize all those responsible.

Concluding, I would like to wholeheartedly appreciate Lindita (Minister of Education) for successfully patronizing this whole coastal area just like other cabinet members have been tasked with patronizing other coastal areas across the country. Lindita and Minister of State for the Protection of Entrepreneurship, Sonila Qaton, have patronized this area and they both have spent their vacations here. The government’s rule stipulates that no cabinet member is allowed to spend holidays abroad and that’s why Lindita picked one of the tourist destinations quite similar to those in other foreign countries thanks to two investors, one from Puka and the other from Tropoja. If we are to support the right projects and work hard instead of talking all the time, there is no doubt that Albania can become just like any other European country.