Peak tourism season benefiting Albanian economy

TIRANA, Aug. 16 – Tourism has become one of the main branches of the Albanian economy, according to Prime Minister Sali Berisha, who like many other Albanianas is spending these hot days on the southwestern coast.
The government is trying hard, helped by the international community, to improve the infrastructure.
Berisha was speaking in an area where the European Commission and the government were investing about 1 million euros for sewage works, reconstruction of cobbled roads and lightening system.
Berisha said, “in the course of last year and during this year, tourism boosted by 60 percent, whereas from 2004 to end of 2009, it increased by 10 percent”.
From 300,000 visitors in Albania in 2004, last year, the number of visitors amounted to 3 million, and this number is quickly increasing this year.
“From July 31 to August 8, about 35 percent visitors more than in 2004 entered Albania,” Berisha said.
But one cannot deny the fact of the long lines of cars in national roads that are being rehabilitated just at this moment. One should also pay attention to the behavior of people in the service industry. A radical change of mentality and infrastructure, homes, hotels all the other things is needued if Albania will look for competing with the neighboring countries, long involved in the tourism industry.