Prime Minister Edi Rama’s speech at event in Prespa village as part of part of the Integrated Rural Development Program “100 Villages”:

 

Greetings everyone!

I am glad we are holding this meeting in a so wonderful area, where a transformation process has been most recently launched. Local residents remember pretty well the previous state of this Prespa centre and how it has been already transformed today and it represents the initial significant indicator of what we are seeking to do, by expanding our ambition’ wings beyond simple urban or infrastructure interventions.

I am also pleased to have been given the opportunity to make this presentation, which clearly shows that how by making a series of small interventions in terms of volume, but quite significant in terms of the energies they generate, the path towards a major transformation can open up, because these seemingly minimalist projects bring to the attention of many tourists an area which still needs to be explored.

This is exactly what the 100 Villages Program aims to do. Meanwhile the work is already underway. Similar to this presentation, you can all guess that potential presentations exist for these 100 selected villages. Of course, currently we are at the designing state and the phase of concrete projects to be materialized on the ground is set to kick off soon. We have been working and have already set the needed funding for these projects. But this is only one aspect of the program.

The next aspect, which is the most important one in my view, focuses on ways to encourage local residents in these villages to join this effort.

We have provided this opportunity, but, on my left, the spaces designed to develop into commercial and tourist units have not been materialized and won’t be materialized should there be a lack of interaction and cooperation between the local government, the community and, of course, the central government support under “The 100 Villages Program.”

While contemplating this landscape, I saw several buildings on top of this hill, which, should they had been constructed in countries with advanced tourism industry, like Switzerland or Greece, they would have been generating income during the 365 days of the year. Those building would have been welcoming visitors, tourists, who would spend many nights here.

Joint work and efforts are needed to turn a private two or three-storey building into a guesthouse or hotel. I guess the families living in these buildings cannot afford such an idea financially. Therefore, there is a need for cooperation which should start with providing information. In addition to the work carried by urbanists and architects of the 100 Village Academy, we also should inform and directly support people living in these 100 villages, giving them access to other funding sources.

We have already adopted an agritourism development program that provides funding for such projects and ideas to transform private homes into guesthouses. The funding is a grant and not a loan. It is all about interest-free cash. We provide funding for guesthouses and agritourism farm stays and hotels, meaning that a joint initiative is needed and it should start right here.

How should we explain and then go over the fact that the funding made available to support agritourism has not been yet full disbursed due to the lack of projects and due to the lack of an interaction between the interested actors, the local government and the central government?

In this case, the central government has already made available the needed funding. The Agricultural and Rural Development Agency has already announced the program. It was cancelled once, but it has been reopened. With the disbursement of the European Commission’s funding we will make more funding available next year. The funding, I reiterate, is not a loan, it is interest-free and it is directly granted to individuals and households wishing to involve in agritourism projects, people who want to turn their own private homes into guesthouses, plan to build a hotel in their own land and host visitors by offering them the area’s natural beauty, the hospitality tradition, food and local delicacies.

This is not a fairy tale. This is for real and is happening today. That’s why, along with the 100 Villages Academy, we are working on setting up a special task force tasked with designing specific projects in order to ensure every single penny available is invested in this initiative. The 100 Villages project looks like as if it was specifically designed for the immigrants to return home and invest their savings in their own hoses, where their parents and relatives currently live. The program is to invite them invest in the land they have left behind, by starting with a small guesthouse and evolve into genuine agritourism businesses, an investment that for surely will generate for them more income than they earn doing daily hard work in Italy, Greece or elsewhere.

This is a way not to survive, but to lead a good life.

Agritourism is a way to lead a good life. If in an area like this one it is very difficult to project agricultural and farming development as a way to generate income and improve living, then it would be much easier and wiser to think about an agritourism investment that would generate enough money for the family and a group of families to improve living conditions and lead a good life.

Why should not people spend their weekends, or even more, in this amazing and magical landscape?

I am very confident this Program is the one the people need. I am pretty confident this is not merely a program that will change life in these 100 villages, but Albania has more 5000 or more villages. I am confident that by starting with these 100 villages, the domino effect and the power of the example of these small projects will encourage other surrounding areas to follow their lead. I am also confident that just like it has happened in the city of Korça, just like it has happened in many other cities across the country, in Berat for example, or just like what is taking place in the town of Puka as people are now visiting Puka – something unimaginable just few years ago as Puka was a miserable area amidst stunning natural beauties, but totally desolate because of the total lack of attention and the lack of elementary things – in the same way there will begin energization of a process that has already started at the ordinary people and the visitors.

We are used to think about the seaside anytime we speak about tourism. It is something we are all used to it, but what the trends show, what the signs of tourism development in recent years show and what is seen in the overall growth tourist numbers as a result of change in Albania’s image, as a result of a much larger presence of Albania on the tourism promoting sites around the world, is that a considerable number of tourists are not coming to spend their vacations at seaside. They wish to experience Albania’s nature and engage in adventure tourism, which means they are eager to see the canyons, the mountainous roads, birds and wildlife, and other aspects of a tourism branch that has nothing to do with the seaside tourism. And the country offers great and exceptional potential in the adventure tourism.

The country has an economy that still needs to be explored and discovered, that is the rural tourism economy, the economy of guesthouse, farm staying and the farming economy that will no longer struggle to transport agriculture produce to the city’s market, but instead it will work to export in terms of visitors. Tourism is export. It is a sector classified as part of exports. Therefore, if reaching the city’s market is a mission impossible for everyone here because of transport cost, then you should all explore ways how to attract people to visit your village.

Thank you very much for the work you have done!