An extended meeting with local government authorities, tourism operators and State Police officials took place at newly-built hotel in the coastal city of Durres on the World Tourism Day on Wednesday to take an overall stock of the summer tourism season this year and the projections for the next tourism season in 2023, with the discussion focusing on ways to further improve tourism industry standards to deliver on all-year-round tourism target.

“A surprising season in terms of the statistics,” the Prime Minister Edi Rama said in his remarks as he commented on the tourism season, adding that Albania’s tourism revenues to the mainstream economy have almost doubled, whereas the visitors’ number to the country significantly increased compared to the previous year. “In the first half of the year alone, the tourism industry earnings amounted to over one billion euros, almost twice as much compared to a year ago. The foreign visitor number is estimated at 5.6 million until the end of August or 1.3 million more international tourists compared to the previous year,” PM Rama said in his remarks.

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First of all, I would like to thank our hosts for their hospitality at this new hotel facility, which is a direct outcome of our government policy to promote tourism entrepreneurship and support the need for construction of five or four and five-star hotels to be more precise, because this is often deliberately misunderstood or misinterpreted in order for the citizens to cherish the idea that our support for such accommodation structures is devised to favour the rich and wealthy people.

We have definitely recorded a very surprising tourism season this summer in terms of figures and it was as such to us, because we were actually prepared for a better season than the previous one or than the previous ones, but the season was really surprising in terms of the revenue influx to the national economy. Tourism revenue surged over one billion euros in the first six months alone or almost twice as much compared to a year ago. The foreign visitor number is estimated at over 5.6 million or 1.3 million more visitors than a year ago. The visitors influx has been scattered throughout the country with a significant diversification of the visitor types, as the Minister of Tourism and Environment rightly noted, with tourists visiting both the country’s north and south and with a significant and encouraging increase of the number of visitors to north also thanks to well-thought investments we have already finalized to improve infrastructure of the most beautiful and best attractions in the north of the country. We will keep delivering on important tourism projects to attract a higher number of visitors to the cities across the country, starting with Tirana.

Tirana has recorded an incredible boom in the visitor number, with tourists preferring to visit Tirana and stay in Tirana and such a trend is obvious not only in number of hotel bookings, but also in the steadily and incredibly growing number of rented apartments through the agencies and via online services.

This year, thanks to the persistent work we launched a year ago today, as we already kicked off work today in view of the next year’s tourist season under the leadership of the Minister of Tourism and Environment, who has made the difference in this aspect, but also thanks to a series of very encouraging examples set by certain municipalities across the country or, more precisely, the example set by a single municipality, for the sake of truth, namely the municipality of Lezha that has set an example of cleanliness and the spectacular exclusion of the municipality of Vlora, we can openly state that we recorded a tourist season, not only the cleanest ever compared to what the situation was previously, but really a clean season, starting with Tirana. The impressions of the surveyed foreign visitors to Tirana start with cleanliness.

We now enjoy all the opportunities to imagine Albania as a tourist champion in the region by 2030 and I wouldn’t be exaggerating at all by calling it a tourist potential, accounted not only for 17% of the country’s GDP, but set to definitely increase and be accounted for 25 and even 30% of the GDP, because the ongoing investments are as such in terms of their size that they can fully allow for this ambition to be fulfilled and not only in terms of participation in the economic volume, but also in terms of participation in increasing quality of the jobs, diversifying the new jobs for more specialised job positions and, certainly, increasing tourism industry wages.

Construction of the international Vlora airport is progressing at a satisfactory rate and the project is guaranteed through the accord with the Munich Airport, which has been picked as Vlora airport’s operator and one should bear in mind the fact that Munich operator is the kind of the operator reaching an agreement to earn a lot.

Work on construction of Saranda airport will begin during this term in office.

Kukes airport has already opened up a fresh perspective. The airport is developing slowly, but well within the projections, and it has opened up a totally new perspective and we are pushing for important investment projects in the tourism sector in the north-eastern region of Kukes.

On the other hand, it is also a fact that agritourism is already yielding its initial encouraging results for the individuals involved and undertaking agritourism investment projects and it is increasing, precisely because those operating in this sector are seeing each other and realizing that it is a secured income and will always be an income the most growing in Albania, which will the champion of the Balkans in tourism within this decade. Albania is destined to become a Balkan champion and this season was really encouraging in this respect. We are still far from meeting this target, but we are sufficiently close to delivering on it, considering the progress we have already made and the foundations we have already laid.

In the meantime, to cut it short, despite all the positive aspects, I would like to point out that there are still many important aspects to improve, starting with the security at beaches amid the growing number of sailing vessels and sports and fast vessels and the tragedy that unfortunately happened was indeed a strong wake- up call for us to tackle these issues and I am really confident that with the new plan to ban the use of jet skis and small fast boats and regulate them in certain areas and with the work already underway by the State Police to set up a special beach supervision team, stronger discipline will be in place.

The number of car accidents has increased exponentially amid the steady surge in the number of private vehicles and bad things unfortunately happen with the development, but there is no other way except the path to development. This said, it is crucially important that what is written should be properly enforced because the plans and the rules have been in place, but their implementation also requires best-trained and very committed teams, which is not actually the case with the Border Police structures. It is also indispensable that the marine management is totally reformed and the reform has been already tabled and all the bodies tasked with marine management, which actually make a huge mess with overlapping and conflicting competences, should be completely reformed to strengthen and empower the coast guard and restructuring other bodies that are needless for a better and streamlined management of the structure.

However, a lot of gaps need to be removed in terms of culture, history and entertainment, especially for children during the tourist season. We have a tourist season for adults, whereas children are just an extension of the tent and then they are taken and locked in the room, because there are no activities of whatsoever and of course this needs to be addressed too, even according to the new rules we are setting for the developers. We will not issue permits for construction of tourist resorts and villages unless the companies fail to include the kid entertainment components. We will also make whatever it takes to make sure that hotels and other accommodation facilities make sure such components for children are in place.

On the other hand, we will establish a specific structure, preparations are already underway, to compile a whole and complete cultural and artistic calendar of the tourist season, so that in collaboration with the municipalities, the tourist seasons feature a series of diverse and rich cultural events, guides and destinations, including events in terms of our history.

It is our challenge that we eventually omit the tourist season cluster and instead we work to ensure all year-round tourism. Albania should be a tourist destination in the 365 days of the year. This should be Albania’s ambition by 2030, so that we register continued visitor influxes.

Concluding, I would like to underline that we still face problems regarding the illegal constructions. The number of unauthorized constructions is definitely much lower, yet there are still many legal buildings that actually fail to fully respect the permission terms and fail to respect architecture and quality aspects of the construction.

I would like to extend a gratitude to the baywatch teams. Little has been said about the baywatchers, but I would like to thank them, as they are playing an increasingly more important role during the tourist season. Their number is increasing, but they also face harsh criticism, but this is something natural. Good work in Albania is often gauged based on how much you are criticized, and not on how much you are praised for your work.