The tourism potential of Shkodra, a beautiful city in north Albania, is left undeveloped due to lack of political will at the central level and human capacities at the local one.
Last year the Albanian government allocated to the city of Shkodra the largest share of the local government funds: 324 million LEK (360.000 $), even more than the capital Tirana. The fund was allocated under to main priorities according to a statement made in a press conference by Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Ferdinand Pone: to alleviate the poverty of the region and help the infrastructure.
When it comes to concrete use of these funds, it is the local government, the municipality that decides what to do with the funds. Besides some minor repair programmed to be done on the streets, no comprehensive and effective strategy has been put forward by the local structures. The problem according to Shkodra-native Ervis Hoti, the secretary of IRSH Association, an NGO promoting young intellectuals, is human resources.
“In order to use the tourism potential in Shkodra and bring this city back to its days, the government’s will should be combined with better capacities at the local administration levels. I know people working at the local level that are completely unprepared for the task,” Hoti said.
Considering the city’s natural, artistic and historical assets it is hard to believe the ongoing decay. Unemployment is rampant. The signs of physical dilapidation range from unfinished roads to old unpainted houses.
Shkodra is the largest North Albanian urban center, 100 km from the capital, Tirana. Nature has been very generous endowing it with two of the largest Albanian rivers, Drin and Buna, joining the sea at its vicinity, a lake suitable for both sailing and fishing, surrounding hills adorned by castles, Albanian Alps at the horizon. It is a 15 minute car ride to the Montenegro border and to the sandy beaches of Velipoja on Albania’s northern Adritic coast.
The historical record of the city has seen it as a vibrant urban economic center especially in the period prior to the two world wars.
Shkodra has produced a trail of crucial figures for Albanian culture such as the poet Migjeni (Millosh Gjergj Nikolla) a revolutionary figure of existential poetry and the Marubi-s, artists of Italian descent who developed photography for the first time in Albania. The latter left behind a precious art collections appraised as Cultural heritage by the UNESCO.
Even during communism the artistic spirit of Shkodra persevered in their humor. The entertainment shows of the regime were fed by the witty and life-loving humor of the Shkodra Theater.
Now Shkodra-born Jozefina Topalli, currently Speaker of the Parliament, is one of the most successful women politicians in Albania. Yet nothing else from the glamorous past is left for a city that now rots in its own poverty.
During the socialist party government the explanation was easy to come up with. Featuring a traditional right-wing electorate it was believed that unless the power changed hands, the administration would purposefully marginalize the city in all economic development programs for punishing its voters. The power however did shift to the right wing coalition in June 2005. Nothing changed for the forgotten city that went on to become even poorer.
Tourism is perceived as an alternative to revive the city’s social scene, revamp its finances and put it back on the map as the most important northern Albanian city. Currently the only tourists are a few dozens brought by buses spending a day in the city as part of the Montenegro tourism packages.
According to Blerta Hoxha, a native Shkodran and a graduate student in Italy, even during this day “they don’t get to see the real monuments of the city, the old traditional religious buildings.” Lack of coordination and a specific vision of the local government have left tourism to the hands of tourist operators that can only arrange a few things artlessly.
At the local level the structures to implement tourism related plans are missing. “There is no tourism board in Shkodra. Such a structure should be created in order to cerate working partnerships and oversee tourism promoting projects,” Member of Parliament Gilman Bakalli, an academic from Shkodra said to Tirana Times.
In June of last year, Bakalli resigned from the DP parliamentary group and became an independent MP, trying to change things for better on his own. He gave a televised speech in the parliament accusing his colleagues that they have purposefully forgotten Shkodra and have no intentions to bring hope to the city.
Despite the funds allocated, Bakalli holds the same opinions about the lack of strategies for development. “This administration not only has done nothing to make the potential of Shkodra visible and available to tourists, but has shown revolting indifference to the city’s decay, together with its historical and cultural assets,” he said.
