Summer is coming to an end… At least, officially. These days, there have been fewer holiday makers in the Albanian Riviera. Albanian institutions are also expecting to publish the statistics regarding what they consider to be a “tourist season”, which in fact coincides with the summer season only. This season starts at the month of May to end in the first days of September. Meanwhile, the tourist industry has been perceived to operate 365 days of the year. But is this the case with Albania?
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Nights is the length of the summer season in Albania and Polish holidaymakers are making the most of it. They are spending their holidays in the coast of Durres, while arriving here by charter through the Polish tour operator “Nouaka Itaka”, which has signed contracts with Albanian hotels, in order for these holidaymakers to arrive in the country from 23 May to 9 October. The latter seems to be a date which is preferred by them, while domestic holidaymakers are surprised by it. “Several other Polish companies are operating with charter planes in Rinas, but also in several other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, such as Czech Republic, Ukraine, Belarus, Slovakia, by taking the number of flights to 17 a week. For next year, 2018, the demand has doubled and besides flights from countries mentioned above, there will also be flights from Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland, carrying holidaymakers who will come to spend their holidays in our coasts, enabling the start of the summer season on 15 May all the way to 15 October”, says the Albanian Tourist Union on such thing. This confirms the increase of the number of tourists and the extension of the tourist season in our country. But, it is still far from its objective of turning into all year round tourism. While tourists who arrive after the tourist season are not great in number, the structures offered to them are inadequate, because according to the Albanian Tourist Season, winter tourism is pointless without ski resorts or such facilities with international standards. Unfortunately, Albania has no ski resorts. Therefore, the attraction of foreign tourists during the winter season still remains a difficult challenge, tour operators, members of this tourist organization say.
Winter tourism, Albanians prefer to spend their holidays in neighboring countries
“Each winter, I prefer to go to Kolashin. It’s marvelous. Albania has nowhere to go to spend the winter holidays. It’s different in Summer, because there’s the sea”.
Entela, 30 years old from Tirana, seems to have chosen the renowned tourist resort in Montenegro as their favorite destination for the winter season. According to her, Albania doesn’t have anything to offer during the winter season. According to experts of tourism, this is true, because Montenegro has winter resorts. The same can be said about Macedonia, while our country is far from them. This seems to be one of the reasons why “all year round tourism” has not been made possible, although the odd tourist can be found in Albania during the winter too. On the other hand, the fact that Mavrovo and Kolashin are full of Albanians in the winter, this shows that they do enjoy winter tourism, but the country still doesn’t have the necessary structures to offer it.
Authorities: We’re aiming all year round tourism
“We’re aiming to offer all year round tourism and our country offers all the necessary conditions for the development of tourist infrastructure in terms of nautical tourism, marine tourism, mountain tourism and cultural tourism”. This was said by the minister of Tourism, Milva Ekonomi, while in the recent months, she has held meetings with representatives of different tourist associations that operate in our country, about the improvement of tourist services and the extension of the season, aiming, above all, the attraction of as many tourists as possible in our country. This fact has also been confirmed by the head of the National Agency of Tourism, Ardit Çollaku in the framework of the promotion of Albanian tourism in international events. “We’re aiming to have more inclusiveness, which is also the current slogan of the World Tourism Organization: we need to have sustainable tourism and all year round tourism. This is something that the current government has introduced in its program”, he said during an interview for Albanian Free Press in an interview on tourism given a short while ago.
PROBLEMS
According to tour operators, the extension of the tourist season has two major problems. The first one relates to the reduction of public services such as urban transport, etc. But, at the same time, there’s also the reduction of working hours for public institutions, museums, etc. These phenomena start to be noticed at the end of August in our country and this makes it more difficult than during the summer for a tourist to stay in our country, but at the same time, the commitment of the authorities toward him too. In this aspect, the Albanian Union of Tourism says that the extension of the tourist season must also be accompanied with several necessary conditions which are required for it.
