TIRANA, Feb. 26 – Albania has promoted its coastal and cultural heritage tourism at a series of European destinations in the first two months of this year and has been featured as an emerging Mediterranean destination by several prestigious media and travel portals.
Albania’s tourism was showcased in Vienna, Madrid, Milan and Prague tourism fairs this year while The Telegraph, the National Geographic Traveler, the Culture Trip portal recommended the Balkan country as an unexplored Mediterranean destination.
The latest showcase of Albania’s tourism potential was at the 24th Central European tourism fair held in Prague where the country was introduced with its own pavilion. Czech Republic TV, Ceska Televize, also aired a programme called “On the way to Albania” dedicated to Albania’s tourism as rising Mediterranean destination, said the Albanian National Tourism Agency.
“The Albanian stand in Milan represented by the country’s tour operators, attracted high interest from visitors, curious about finding out more on this rising international tourist destination,” said the Tourism Agency about its participation in Italy’s BIT Milan fair in early February.
Albania’s tourism was also featured in Madrid and the Hague, where a photo exhibition of “Albania from the air and underwater” was displayed.
Albania’s tourism attractions have also been positively portrayed by international media and tourism portal.
“With long stretches by the Adriatic, a fascinating history, and only a few inquisitive travellers, Albania is ripe for exploring in 2015,” writes Caroline Shearing for The Guardian.
Canada’s The Globe and Mail also placed Albania as a must-see destination for 2015.
Meanwhile, the ancient city of Butrint, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1992, was recommended by a prestigious British portal as one of Europe’s top 12 unexplored destinations.
A rising destination
Albania offers a miscellaneous picture of coastal and mountain tourism and has been attracting more and more foreign tourists in the past few years being nicknamed as “A New Mediterranean Love” and “Europe’s Last Secret”.
In January 2014, The New York Times ranked Albania as one of the top four global destinations to go to for 2014, placing the Balkan country as the single European destination on top of the list. The prestigious daily newspaper ranks the Albanian coast the number four destination to visit, describing it as Europe at its best on a rugged shore and noting that “the Maryland-sized country combines the rugged beauty of Croatia with undiscovered ruins of Turkey or Greece.”
The rating by New York Times came after Lonely Planet tourist guide ranked Albania as the top destination for 2011 and the country was placed sixth in CNN’s top 10 destinations for 2011.
Back in 2012, the Globe and Mail, Canada’s largest national newspaper, selected Albania as a top tourism destination in 2012.
Tourist numbers rising
The number of foreign tourists visiting Albania in the third quarter of 2014, which is the peak of Albania’s summer dominated tourism, registered a 6.2 percent increase, with the number of visitors entering the country from July to September estimated at around 1.8 million people, according to data published by state statistical institute INSTAT.
The overwhelming majority of 87 percent of foreign tourists, mainly ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, Macedonia, entered Albania by land, while 119,000 by air and 107,000 by sea.
Tourism revenue in the third quarter of the year, which is the peak of the tourist season, rose to 401 million euros, up from 362 million euros during the same period in 2013, signaling a recovery in this vital sector which has been suffering crisis impacts since 2010. In total, tourism revenue rose to 946 million euros, up from 760 million euros in the first nine months of 2013, according to Bank of Albania data.
The number of foreign tourists visiting Albania registered a slight decline in 2013 while tourism revenue continued its downward trend for the fourth year in a row, unveiling the critical situation in one of Albania’s most promising sectors.
Data from the country’s state statistical institute, INSTAT, show the number of foreign tourists to Albania dropped by 1.5 percent to 3.46 million in 2013, down from a historic high of 3.51 million in 2012, registering the first decline since 2000.
Tourism revenue registered a drop for the fourth consecutive year in 2013. Central bank data show tourism revenue dropped to 1.1 billion euros in 2013, down from 1.14 billion in 2012 registering the lowest level since 2007.
Meanwhile, Albanians’ spending on trips abroad rose to 1.1 billion euros in 2013, up from 1 billion euros in 2012 and the peak 1.12 billion euros in 2011 when Albania’s visa regime to the Schengen area was lifted.
Ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro account for three-fifths of foreign tourists visiting Albania, with local experts often referring to this market as ‘patriotic tourism.’
In May 2014, U.S-based APCO Worldwide and its StrawberryFrog ad unit was announced the winner of an international competition on branding Albanian tourism which in the past four global crisis years has suffered a decline in income.
The global ad campaign will be led by StrawberryFrog and APCO Worldwide under the slogan “Albania, Go your own way.”
