French magazine L’Express has ranked Albania as the top third global destination to visit for 2015, describing Albania as the new pearl of the Balkans
TIRANA, April 2 – With two months before Albania opens its new tourist season, French and Swedish media have paid tribute to Albania’s rising tourism industry, recommending the Balkan country famous for its coastal but also cultural heritage tourism as a top destination for 2015.
French magazine L’Express has ranked Albania as the top third global destination to visit for 2015, describing Albania as the new pearl of the Balkans.
Featuring a picture of the Qeparo village in the southern Albanian Riviera, the magazine recommends Albania for its beautiful beaches and mountains, the UNESCO World Heritage sites and its 2,500-year history with Roman and Byzantine elements.
What makes Albania a favourable destination for French tourists is also the newly launched direct flights to Paris and Brussels twice a week and the cheap prices and quality Albania offers, the magazine says.
Meanwhile, Swedish journalist Kicki Lind who visited Albania in summer 2014 has also paid tribute to Albania’s beautiful coastline, mountain tourism and historic sites.
“How could it have taken over twenty years for a country that holds so much to see to appear on the international tourist map,” wonders the Swedish journalist on her feature called “New light on Albania” which has been published in three prestigious Swedish newspapers.
Albania has promoted its coastal and cultural heritage tourism at a series of European destinations in early 2015 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, Prague and Berlin tourism fairs this year while The Telegraph, the National Geographic Traveler, the Culture Trip portal recommended the Balkan country as an unexplored Mediterranean 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.
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 is being led under the slogan “Albania, Go your own way.”
