Albanians, high expenditures for holidays abroad

TIRANA, Feb14 – In the last two years the number of Albanians spending their holidays abroad has shown considerable increase. Reasons include high domestic process and aggressive marketing from abroad. Albania, despite being emblazoned with lots of natural beauty and potential has a lot of difficulty in comparing to other neighboring countries which have a more traditional investment in the sector of tourism. 583 million euro, have been spent by Albanian residents going abroad for holidays. This sum is almost 85 percent of the remittances sent by emigrants. These figures surpasses the revenues that tourism has brought the Albanian economy deepening the gap between the two from 30 to 38 million euro for the first nine months of 2006. The main source of revenues in Albania in the tourism heading is the holiday flux of returning emigrants. BoA statistics has shown that 614 million leks has been generated form tourism for the first three quarters of 2006. The number is 33 percent higher than export, an indicative of the potential in this sector. Almost 26 percent more foreigners have visited Albania for tourism purposes in 2006. The service industry which is highly correlated to this economic sector has experienced qualitative as well as quantitative boosts. The service industry has an annual revenue figure of 1.9 billion euro, 22 percent higher than in 2005.
The Albanian coast is suffering under a still-born syndrome of cementation with illegal and unplanned construction sweeping away the naturally beautiful seaside. Yet it remains the main attraction for tourist especially coming from Kosova.