Albania’s tourism, experts urge looking beyond ‘numbers game’

TIRANA, Sept. 6 – As Albania faces a national record number of tourists, travel and tourism experts have called on the Albanian government not to focus on the numbers game, but a clear strategy that would improve service quality and increase income for the country’s emerging and much promising industry. Albanian authorities report the country was visited by more than 5 million foreign tourists last year, generating a record high of €1.7 billion in income, about 14 percent of the country’s GDP, but travel industry experts say about 80 percent of those numbers are ethnic Albanians in a segment often…