Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks during event at yacht port in Orikum, Vlora district, to outline measures for new tourist season:

 

Few months ago, the leading British newspaper “The Guardian” rated Albania as among the top 20 travel and tourism destinations around the world.

“Albania’s star has been rising, with more travellers each year wanting to explore its treasures, such as the Accursed Mountains of the north, and wild beautiful white beaches of the south,” the Guardian said.

The truth is that Albania as a top destination that deserves more travellers is making headlines on the international newspapers, magazines, and travel blogs around the world, with all of them highlighting a significant and steady growth of Albania’s tourism industry compared to the previous year, but it is not a surprise, or at least not to us, because we are quite clear about what we have been trying to achieve throughout this transformation process, with the National Urban Renaissance Program being the main instrument, as we are very clear about where we plan to arrive.

I feel confident that if we managed to exceed the target of five million foreign tourist arrivals last year, this year we expect the international tourist arrivals to grow by at a minimum of 15 percent compared to the previous year and meeting the target of 10 million foreign visitors in the next five years looks achievable.

This target is totally achievable because the country’s tourism development potential is still far from being fully exploited.

It is totally achievable because Albania is increasingly emerging as an under-the-radar destination and is attracting more and more foreign tourists from Europe and beyond the continent as a top destination.

This target is completely achievable as we see a growing influx of applications from both the domestic and foreign business to invest in Albania’s tourism.

Of course, we didn’t chose Vlora in vain to make an outline of the preparations and measures for the new tourist season, because Vlora is one of the most important tourist centres in the country and today I believe Vlora is the merit and the emblem of change that has affected all the tourist areas across the country and where this transformation will further deepen step by step and year after year. We all know that Vlora today is still a kind of construction site, still undergoing a steady transformation process. Suffice to bear in mind that entire “Ismail Qemali” Boulevard is today a totally radical reconstruction stretching from Vlora to Skele and I’m confident it will provide the southern coastal city a new attractive power, enriching with all the elements of the new project, including the park stretching to the Martyrs’ Cemetery. While throughout the length of the Boulevard the size of the green will be multiply compared to what it used to be.

The next construction phase on the Vlora waterfront promenade project, or Lungomare, which will significantly improve the situation on the city’s southern side, while entire area needs to cleaned up and transformed.

The city’s historic centre will undergo a specific revitalization project to turn the area into another attraction on Vlora’s tourist package as a major destination. Many things will take place within the area of tourist centre, including upgrading of the engineering network and the damaged water supply network.

The good news is that after all the eagerness convulsions regarding the construction of Lungomare there are no complaints over new impediments and delays, especially over the Boulevard, which shows that the trust of citizens has already been fully gained that if a road or a thoroughfare is blocked, or the movement is temporary limited, this is done for completely legitimate reasons.

A series of new projects will kick off step by step in a near future, including the construction of the road axis stretching from the Lungomare to further Radhima and Orikum. In fact, the situation across that axis is totally unacceptable considering our ambition to take tourism to a completely different new level. The infrastructure projects also include the Orikum-LLogara road, along with the Llogara tunnel project, which is of strategic importance to shorten distance with the other part, where important transformations are taking place too.

Whoever plans to spend vacations in Jal or Dhermi this year will see a completely different place thanks to the interventions designed to transform the whole area.

Work will kick off in the few coming months on construction of two other section of the Vlora River road, a very important project that will have new beneficial effect for the entire area and support intensive development of an area which has tremendous potential for development of agro-tourism.

The government is holding discussions and negotiations on the construction of the international Vlora airport, with the construction works excepted to commence very soon. A major investment of a considerable value, but beyond the funding value, the airport will provide a new entry and exit gateway to Albania. The new airport will be totally competitive to the country’s sole international Rinas Airport and will provide exceptional ease for all travellers from the southern Albania, as well as for tourists who wish to visit this area. I am deeply confident that we will build the airport faster than projected and I am looking forward to seeing the new airport becoming operational by 2020.

The “100 Village” program, a special program developed thanks to cooperation between several ministries, includes many villages in this area. I would point out the fact that in the meantime, both Dhërmi and Vunoi are undergoing fundamental transformation. I remain confident that we will see these areas into important tourist attractions in a very near future as all homes that are being rebuilding and will be run by their owners and will be made available to tourists, making the area more attractive to domestic and foreign visitors alike.

Over the next few days, the government will adopt the decision to cut the Value Added Tax on agro-tourism to six percent and a five-percent profit tax rate only. We will also approve the decision to significantly lower taxes on businesses with an annual turnover ranging from 80 to 140 million lek, that a tax rate ranging from zero to five percent will be applied on about 92% of the businesses operating in Albania. Let them say then that this government is increasing taxes.

All these projects are planned to be developed in this area alone, but the reason why we are here today has to do with the need to share the plan we have been working on over the past six months to ensure a clean, safe and entertaining tourism season like never before.

We have been aiming for the tourist season to be not just a period of family stay in the hotel room, on the beach and at the restaurant, but to ensure a season rich in various attractions that are available to families along entire coastline and not only the classic cultural heritage destinations, or with different attractions of rare natural beauty, but also rich in traditional village festivals in the surrounding areas. A series of other cultural and artistic events are scheduled to take place. More than 500 events of various kinds are scheduled along the entire coast line as part of the plan we have already prepared. The idea is to host a range of traditional festivals and events in order to attract more local and foreign visitors in order to explore and discover elements of our culture, traditions and lifestyle.

This plan will be implemented for the first time ever across the country. Of course, we will draw a lot of lessons from this season I am fully confident it will be a very rich and impressive season in this respect, but not only.

Since we started the second term in office, we have been working throughout this period to ensure that all healthcare centres along the cost to transform and meet the required standards to provide a decent health care service which was not available until lately, let alone the consolidated movable health centres which are available 24 hours 7 days a week.

But this is not enough. Safety and public order are also important. A series of measures are scheduled to ensure acoustic pollution-free holidays. Noise-pollution is an inherited challenge over the years. To this end, in close collaboration with the local government authorities, we will impose certain measures to restrict night-time noise and the police stations will be tasked with enforcing the law and the rules equally to all, according to areas and preset schedules. The challenge is to put an end to the long-lasting story of horrible night-noise to ensure well-deserved peace and quiet for all holidaymakers to allow them enjoy a relaxing holiday in a noise-free environment.

A better coordination and support from the local government authorities and the citizens is needed in this aspect, while citizens should cooperate with the state police to ensure that due measures are enforced and also ensure that all corrupt officers and officials, who are used to take bribes in exchange of turning a deaf ear to the noise, will be no longer able to do that. This is a very important part of the measures.

The problem of dangerous watercrafts and jet skis will be ultimately solved as they won’t be allowed to be used everywhere and out of control. Certain areas for their use have been defined and whoever violates the border of these areas will be penalized and the jet skis will be confiscated. Although our structures are not yet capable of dealing with the issue of sports watercrafts and chase these sea adventurers, the latter won’t be allowed to have water sports’ fun throughout the day. The idea that people’s lives could be under threat, or innocent people could get injured by these watercrafts is unacceptable and therefore we have put due measures in place.

Same measures are in place to ensure that police services are totally available to holidaymakers with an increased presence of police to ensure maximum safety, public order and help the millions of vacationers and visitors we expect to arrive in the country during the high summer season.

We have also worked to implement a relaxation plan in terms of the entry and exit of persons arriving and departing through Albania’s borders. Of course the plan is closely related to the implementation of border security standards and norms.

Meanwhile, the last but not least, although all aspects I mentioned above are of a particular importance, special attention has also been placed on cleanliness. All the effort made like never before over the past six months to clean up Albania’s beaches of the mountains of garbage and waste is inadequate because, on the other hand, the contribution of citizens and the contribution of businesses, not to clean up is still very deficient.

We have deployed more than 1000 boys and girls who will assist tourists throughout the season, to raise public awareness about cleanliness and report any flagrant case of pollution. In collaboration with the local government we will do whatever it takes to address these flagrant cases and we will be forced to adopt measures against polluters. I urge first and foremost all hotel operators to join this effort to honour this country, our common home, and not to discredit the country by exposing it to foreigners as an unclean environment.

Although we have strengthened the cleaning system and a lot has been done to support local government units, the issue of cleanliness cannot be properly addressed if everyone throw the garbage on the ground, if each does not fulfils his duty as a patriot by not polluting his or her own homeland. It would be impossible. The media has reported recurrent pollution cases, when piles of garbage and littered ground have been created soon after a broad cleaning operation. This is unacceptable.

However, this is a battle not to be won for good during a tourist season alone, but it is a battle we will fight till the end throughout the summer season and wherever accommodation structures operate. Everyone choosing to spend holidays in Albania’s coast deserves decent respect and hospitality. On the other hand, Albanians should be all aware that they are part of this shared responsibility in order to prevent from being seen as a dirty and unhygienic country in the eyes of others. It is impossible to continue this way.

We have done an incredible job to develop this plan. I am profoundly confident things will go much better than in the previous year or in the past. But I am also confident that shortcomings will be revealed in all aspects and we will have a lot of things to learn in order to improve things next year. I am also pretty sure that, although it was us to prepare an agenda of traditional festivals in various regions across the country, entire communities and individuals will commit and call for cooperation in order to expand this range of festivals during the next tourist season, as festivals are translated into income and economy. The traditional festivals in rural coastal areas are translated into a better economy of these areas.

I am also convinced that if the media provides its contribution by reporting and highlighting not only the negative aspects – the only thing they know to do with a zeal beyond any expectation – but also the positive aspects, and cleanliness in particular.

Thank you very much for your presence and I avail myself of this opportunity to wish the Mayor of Vlora and the Vlora citizens a successful tourist season.

Thank you!