Prime Minister Edi Rama’s address to the ceremony marking second edition of “Smile Albania” tourism project:

First of all, I apologize for being late and be sure this was not a typical leaders’ lateness behaviour, but just an objective impossibility to be on time, something I do personally hate. Therefore, I again apologize for this.

I very much wanted to attend this meeting with you, because the last years’ experience, a new initiative conceived by the Minister of Tourism, although, as everything else, it met a lot of skepticism, indeed it was a payoff initiative and its renewal this year was somehow completely natural. The last year’s lessons constitute a valuable experience to further improve this initiative in its content, providing at the same time to 500 young girls and boys an opportunity to take up a job at the peak tourism season, not only to make some savings, which is not bad at all, but also gain a lot from such an experience. It is a human experience, as well as a professional communication experience, but after all it is an experience from which we gather more information based on your impressions and suggestions that will be included on a report by the Ministry of Tourism by season’s end.

We are currently going through an intermediate stage, if you will, and while preparing this address I picked an excerpt from the famous book Needle Doctor by Faik Konica, which goes as following: He took his suitcase in his hand, walked down the rusty ship stairs, entered a bar, and then the dirty and sour-faced customs officers started to dig in his personal belongings. This has been written long time ago, but it sounds as if written just few years ago and we can well say that such a story could be well written today too when it comes to certain cases, but not as a typical description about any contact with the police or customs officers, as, without exaggerating, significant, yet insufficient changes have taken place. Smile Albania can serve to relax and comfort anyone who unfortunately might encounter, although not frequently, police and customs officers similar to those described by Faik Konica. This has been the country’s image for many years and the tourism sector has been a tough takeover by individuals who did whatever they could and whatever they knew to do by building chaotically and adding rooms, concrete platforms over the sand, by erecting heinous buildings right where they shouldn’t. But today, compared to what it was when we took office, significant progress has been made, but compared to where we should be, we still face a tedious path ahead, the speed of which depends on us all together, the decision-makers and every citizen because it is all about an extraordinary asset which has been abused over the years, but which still has tremendous potential to grow the economy, generate employment and transform the country’s image.

Yesterday, or two days ago – I don’t exactly remember – an Italian newspaper in the Veneto region wrote that German tourists were departing for the Adriatic coast as they have discovered Albania and the truth is that Albania has been a constant discovery over the past few years, because it has been completely out of the tourism map and tourists’ attention and it offered foreign visitors no opportunity to satisfy their curiosity. Getting visitors to come is a significant challenge and Albania should concentrate on making the country more tourist-friendly once foreigners arrive – in the hope they stay longer and spend more and come back again. The challenge in itself is not only getting foreign tourists to explore the country, but after exploring and experiencing first-hand Albania, they feel wanting to come back again. Of course, everything that doesn’t go right, any episode or detail that fails to impress an individual or a tourist group, estranges and keeps them away once and for all. Uncleanness, the administration system’s failure to function properly and normally, but also dysfunction of the hospitality system makes it a reason for visitors not to come and look back again, because, during those few days of vacations, it is very important for tourists, neither foreign tourists, nor wealthy local tourists are willing to forgive you even for the slightest disturbing episode.

This initiative has a good side, because it is a very inexpensive investment compared to the contribution it provides thanks to you all as it significantly improves the visitors’ relation with the country everywhere such contact points work and wherever such contacts are established and, on the other hand, tourists themselves have expressed countless impressions and encouraging messages. One of the visitors wrote on a local newspaper in Gjirokaster that tourists had been surprised upon their arrival at Muzina Pass as they had been told that masked robbers might emerge from nowhere, but indeed they had been extended a warm welcome by a group of Smile Albania activists. At first sight they might have thought these people were members of a criminal group welcoming them with a smile and would remove their masks soon, but the opposite was true and this was a positive impression.

Another aspect of this initiative is the continued involvement of students, boys and girls who still have to enter the long highway of life in the country’s daily reality according to their education profile and their passions. And I am very pleased that in this aspect too, a lot of things have changed since the student protest thanks to the Pact for the University with many of student demands already being met and other issues, including the student dormitories infrastructure, university halls and laboratory infrastructure are in the process, but no deadline has been violated and no target has been abandoned.

Using such practices is part of the Pact for the University and I am very pleased that the job you will deal with following a careful selection process, because the number of application by your peers has been very high, will best serve the country’s tourism and image, as well as it will serve as a positive working experience for each and every one of you. To better understand all of this, I would like to share some concrete data that show this initiative is not merely beautiful in its appearance. I would like to tell you that the findings of a survey we conducted with foreign visitors and with the help of Smile Albania members last year show 87% of them are satisfied at visiting Albania and 93 percent of them said they would happily recommend others to visit Albania. The seven percent of visitors who would not recommend visiting Albania is a considerable percentage that could spread negative impression to a large group of people, and given that negative opinion can spread easily and has a greater impact than the positive opinions we should do whatever it takes, and I’m addressing to the entire society, to every Albanian citizen who encounter foreign visitors, I am addressing to every owner of accommodation and hospitality facility, every water and manager to bear in mind that a tourist is much more than a customer, and he, she or they should not develop negative impressions. A tourist spreads the negative opinion to a large group of people. And all this can be done by a single person, let alone a large group of tourists who visit the country as part of a tour group through the tour and travel agencies and who can express dissatisfaction to the agencies. Therefore, the damage could be colossal and if we are to consider what other countries do, I would like to highlight the example of Corsica. Corsica is one of the most fantastic examples of the people’s unity literally vis-à-vis the foreign tourists. It is a kind of sacred relation that enjoys understanding and unity of every Corsican, from the one welcoming visitors at the airport’s check-in to the last person who deals with foreigners. This is Corsica’s pride and the need to make every visitor happy and if we were to refer to our tradition and to what we always take proud in, I mean our hospitality, this is something everyone should bear in mind when communicating with foreign visitors, because a foreign tourist who gets a positive impression is a very important spokesperson. But a tourist who gets a negative impression is much more important in terms of the damage he could inflict upon the country’s image and tourism.

Thank you very much!