Albania has a new tourism law. Its chief aims are to increase services and improve quality, the government says. The goals and some of the new tools it provides are laudable, but there has been some criticism and implementation will be hard. The important thing is to improve the way tourism works in Albania, and many hope the new law will help.
Tourism today makes only a small fraction of Albania’s GDP. However, its potential is undeniable.
The country so far has been able to attract the attention of value and adventure travelers, but it has been missing on the more economically sound middle class family international tourists. They can easily be attracted to this country and its natural beauty if the infrastructure and services exist to accommodate them.
At the very core of the new law stands work to accommodate this group of people.
Albania today clearly needs better qualified tourism workers and managers that know how to conduct themselves in a professional way.
If the Albanian tourism sector is to take the next step to grow in the path of regional powers like Greece and Croatia, it must introduce a more professional approach to the services provided.
Large investors and operators are needed for this goal. They can provide both the financial incentives and experience to run large resorts that can be used by the type of tourist that Albania needs.
What has been stopping this from happening is lack of investment security in the legal and practical sense. Property disputes are a major problem. The new law provides some incentives for large investors in this regard by offering long-term concessions on public land for multi-million-euro proposals.
It’s a good start, but the law must also take into account the interests of the local communities where these resorts will be built. If these local interests are ignored, big projects can fail, as was the case with the proposed Club Med resort several years ago.
The law has come under some criticism from the opposition, as it says it puts too much power over development in the hands of the central government. Overall, some criticism on this point was also made by members of the ruling coalition in parliament, leading to a softening off the wordings on powers given to the tourism minister.
Some strong central supervision is needed — as long as it is not abused. If one travels around Albania one can see that the years of transition were not kind in many ways to nature. Construction through local permits was often done in the wrong way, causing a lot of damage to the natural beauty of tourist hot spots. Saranda and Durres Beach are examples of how concrete has overtaken every inch of available public space.
A good example of what was done the can be seen in the small southeastern town of Pogradec. Urban planning protected the natural beauty of the lake shore while allowing for new buildings and hotels.
The tourism sector also suffers many of the ills of other sectors of the Albanian economy. Informality is high and thus the amount of taxes the state collects is low and there is little accountability for pricing or for service quality.
The new law attempts to address all of these concerns, however, the important thing to see is how the law will be implemented. Albania usually does not suffer from lack of quality legislation on the books — what it suffers from is a lack of proper implementation.
A positive thing about Albanian culture at this time is that due to the relative low number of foreign tourists, the country has retained a genuine friendly face for visitors. As the numbers will grow that genuine welcoming kindness on the personal level will have to be substituted with a welcome provided by professional service providers.
At the end of the day, if the Albanian tourism sector is to grow, it must shift away from relying solely on ethnic Albanians from the former Yugoslavia and Albanian migrants who return home for the holidays — and appeal to middle class resort-type tourist. It needs to do more than implement good laws. It will need a certain amount of a cultural shift.
But if it is successful, this shift can provide an immense amount of opportunity for this small country, which is gifted by nature with beautiful landscapes and a wonderful climate.
