Parachuters promote tourism in southern Albania

TIRANA, June 6 – A group of 30 professional Albanian and foreign parachuters conducted a one-week awareness campaign this week in southern Albania to promote parachuting which is a new sport in Albania. The campaign led by Albania’s Alket Islami, the president of the National Aero Club, was also aimed at raising awareness among local authorities to create the necessary conditions for the practicing of the sport, as another tool to attract more tourists to Albania. The awareness campaign started in the UNSECO World Heritage site of Gjirokastra and will continue via Antigone park to other southern tourist sites during the week. Alket Islami, Albania’s most famous aerial photographer, has opened solo exhibitions featuring photos of the country’s most popular tourist attractions in many countries of the region. By November 2012, when the country celebrates its 100th anniversary of independence, Albania will have a new album of its cultural monuments photographed from the air. The two-year project launched in late 2010, will be implemented by the National Aero Club of Albania and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in an effort to further promote cultural tourism and increase the number of visitors to archeological sites and monuments of culture, including old monasteries, mosques and historical houses. The album will contain 300 photos accompanied with bilingual Albanian and English captions. The Ministry says the publication will also create a database of pictures showing the real condition of Albanian cultural monuments in order to help officials monitor their condition. The photos will be taken by Alket Islami who has previously successfully published three albums with pictures called “Albania from the air.” An aerial photographer, Alket Islami works as a paragliding and paramotor instructor. Through his passion he has developed a new relationship with his country. “At the beginning I thought, like everyone else, of going away and working somewhere else. Then I became acquainted with paragliding and started introducing the sport in Albania. Flying is a form of virus, an incurable, but somehow pleasant, uplifting sickness. Thanks to this sickness I will use every ounce of strength flying for my country and using my perspective on Albania from above,” Islami told the European Stability Initiative in 2008.