“Safe stay in Albania”, a plan of inter-institutional measures for a successful tourist season

The summer tourist season is just around the corner and measures to ensure its smooth progress are already being undertaken by all institutions to guarantee safety, hospitality, services and infrastructure of high standards for tourists who choose Albania as their destination.

In order to present the measures, a meeting was held today, with all institutional levels of the country, as well as with representatives of the tourism industry, with the participation of Prime Minister Rama.

"We need to do and will do everything to add the "Safe stay in Albania" certificate to the "Made in Albania" offer of Albanian tourism as a tourist destination with impressive security." - said the Minister of the Interior Taulant Balla, in his presentation, as he added that "The State Police has prepared a broad plan of measures which extends to the entire territory and which relates to all the present law enforcement agencies, as well as with the local government."

Meanwhile, the Minister of Health and Social Protection Albana Koçiu announced that "Starting from June 1, in order to cope with the increased flow of tourists, 34 seasonal health centers will be opened, i.e. 4 more than last year, geographically distributed throughout Albania and in key areas where there is an increased flow of tourists".

For his part, Prime Minister Rama emphasized that it is very important what Albania will offer year after year, in order to respond to the extraordinary increase in interest and demand.

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Greetings! I will not promise that his will be a short speech. I am very glad that today we have gathered with all the institutional levels of the country as well as with the representatives of the tourism industry to decide on some points related to the tourist season or more precisely related to the peak of the tourist season because now we do not have an Albania divided into a period without tourism and then into a period with tourism, but we have a country that actually has a touristic season spread over the span of 365 days of the year.

This is evidenced by the fact that in the first period of this year we are faced with a surprising increase in the number of foreign visitors who entered Albania, which in January, February and March combined is 65% higher. Meanwhile, if we analyze only March, the number of visits are over 90% higher. Which means that we are facing a very rapid development and an increase in the number of tourists that disappoints all the most optimistic expectations, in the sense that it is even higher than the most optimistic expectations.

I remember a meeting with the tourist operators, some of whom I see here in Durrës, they were very pleased that the number of foreign visitors to Albania had reached 5 million and I told them, after 5 years, we will reach 10 million.

Many had reason to question this prediction, equaling it with those fortune-telling or electoral promises that are often thrown in the air by people who simply just ask for votes, but the predictions were right, like those predictions of the outcome of the elections that are based on factual analysis, on concrete data and on trend projections that have without question a scientific basis.

But today if you ask me where Albania will be in 2030 in relation to the number of tourists and if I go back to our very ambitious objective of having 20 million tourists in 2030, I am very afraid that I would be wrong as we will have to look at this year by year to have more certainty for a 5-year projection, in the sense that I think that it is absolutely not stupid to think, seeing how this year started, that the figure of 20 million tourists will be reached much earlier and that in 2030 the demand for Albania can reach up to 30 million, but when we talk about these projections and when we talk about the increase in demand, on the other hand, we must never forget the supply.

What we offer today and what we need to do today and year after year for our offer to respond to the growth of demand and here we come to the reason for this meeting and the need to understand how important what we do is, at all levels of government and at all levels of institutions on the one hand and in all the interaction of the private sector on the other, but in cooperation and harmony with each other to guarantee that this request comes to growth and not be hit by the lack of supply or the low quality of the supply at any given moment. We should be very concerned about this danger. As we must be very attentive and very careful not to let this flow of tourists roam freely because I have said it many times, we do not need an Albania destination for mass tourism. We do not just need to increase the number of foreign visitors. We need a place that balances all layers and categories of tourists and that manages to formulate an offer where it is not the numbers at first sight that matter, but the quality of the numbers. What does the quality of the numbers mean in this case? It depends on the consumption capacity of a tourist, which then determines how much interest one has and with what consequences this interest comes with, to have 1 million more tourists who consume a little every day or have 100 thousand more who consume a lot every day.

The difference between the two is that those 100,000 who consume a lot can bring in more revenue than the 1 million who consume a little, but on the other hand they don't put the country, they don't put the country's organism under the tremendous pressure associated with cleaning, which is related to the treatment of waste, because it is one thing to clean and treat the waste of 100 thousand, another to clean and treat the waste of 1 million people.

In order not to go further with this topic that we are having a continuous discussion for, and that requires not only the elaboration of itself, but also the elaboration of all its parts, by encouraging much more investments that bring expansion of capacities for tourists who spend more, preserving nature and all that part of the country's beauties that are attractive precisely because they are untouched.

Today there is a fact, which I say based on the occasional comments that are made freely by people, not by everyone, thankfully, that we don't need airports, we don't need flights, we don't need how many tourists came and how many tourists will come and receiving a comment from someone who impressed me, a lady on my social networks who under a post about the Llogara tunnel said, "stop, you are tiring us with the tunnel holes, the people want bread", and added "deal with the teachers and give more to the teachers", thus she was probably a teacher.

I mention this comment because it is very important that we continue to explain things that are normally without any need to be explained, but that under these conditions it is necessary to explain because all people should be aware of what is tourism for us, what tourism means for their economy, what tourism means for the wages that people rightly talk about continuously, what tourism means for pensions for which there is a historical, traditional discussion, do you think that increasing pensions is a matter of desire? Are you saying that there are in this world prime ministers or governments that do not want to increase pensions? The increase in salaries and pensions is related to the financial capacity a country has, because if one increases salaries and pensions, the increase is for every month and in all the years to come and depending of the capacities one has for all the years to come, one can increase pensions and salaries in one moment and then lead the people towards a big hole in the future.

The connection between these is that from tourism we benefited last year as a country, not as a state, as a government, but as a country 4.2 billion euros. 4.2 billion euros is a very significant figure and to those who ask "where did this money go", we must answer that this money went to the people in the first place, only the number of families who rent out their apartments through the AirBnB system and who earn income from tourists who do not go to hotels. So a large part of tourists go to houses and all this fund is an untaxed fund, an undeclared fund in the overwhelming part, it is a money which all intact, not a cent, goes to the families and it is considerable. On purpose, we have been very liberal and fully aware that this is not the moment to access this fund and harass families with taxes for this part. Yes, these are extraordinary revenues that come to Albania.

Another part of this income has very significantly influenced salaries. Industry wages. Today we have a tourism industry that is ready to pay without any distinction similarly to Greece, the vast majority of the entire chain, with the difference that in Greece a boy or girl must with that salary pay the rent, the transport, while not a small part of the boys and girls who work in the tourism sector in Albania have their house nearby and have a much lower level of taxes than they have in Greece. I have not taken Greece as an example before, because it is a much more developed country than us in tourism and it has been previously unthinkable that we would be compared to Greece. Today we are in this league of competition, today we have entered the "Champions Leauge" of competition in tourism and this is as much a historical moment as it is a moment of all-round challenges because we have entered the "Champions Leauge", but we must remain in the "Champions League". Italy, Greece, France, Spain, Croatia and so on do not fall from the "Champions League", they do not go to the UEFA cup. We have not consolidated our position, we must consolidate it and not only will we consolidate it, but we must be more and more competitive every year.

For this reason, I want to use this moment to say to all the young men and women who are out of Albania, very simply, and who work in the tourism sector, or who go abroad to work in the tourism sector. What are you looking for there? Why are you staying there? Today all hotels here have vacancies and are in great need of qualified employees, why do you leave this gap? Just like I tell others who hear the salary story from conversations: try to go and knock on the doors of tourist infrastructure hotels and see that there are employment opportunities for them, but of course, to be very real, the opportunity of employment in tourism today is nothing, compared to the possibility of employment in tourism tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, considering how many investments are in approval processes at the request of private enterprises, in Tirana, on the coastline and beyond when it comes to agro-tourism or when it comes to high-level hotels. And all these investments that are massive need qualified people and it is without question that the following years will show year after year that Albania, thanks to this power that is getting from tourism, will have the capacity to pay in the tourism industry qualified employees without any difference from the countries of the region.

I don't want to dwell on this part more, but I want to take a very simple example here. Before I came here, I was with one of the most famous architects in the world today, a laureate of the "Pritzker Prize", which is the Nobel of architecture and who had come to Tirana from Chile. Imagine the road, from Santiago to Tirana to see Tirana and to see Tirana with the interest of a person who wanted to understand what and how is happening in Tirana in terms of transformation and today we are talking about some of these Nobel laureates of architecture that are engaged with projects in Albania. Their projects are related to the tourism industry.

Only Pjerini's Lezha, since the Police is also here and I can't help but separate Pjerini from the others by name. Only Pjerini's Lezha will soon host two "Pritzker Prize", two architecture nobel winners who are working on projects for tourism. Alvaro Siza and Toyo Ito. And this is very significant to understand where we are going and to understand what we will have at our disposal in a few years when these projects take shape and with how much dignity and with what different capacities we will stay in the "Champion League" of Mediterranean tourism. We are a small country, but we have a very big blessing, that's why I always say that when God made Albania, He made it on Sunday when it was a day off and put everything in 28 thousand square meters. 2 seas, 9 rivers, mountains, fantastic valleys, underground wealth, everything possible and imaginable to have in a very short distance, God has put it on the map of Albania. I don't know on what day and what intensity of work He had that day, but when He made Albania it was Sunday and He had a day off.

What do tourists say when they come to Albania, when you ask them what they like about Albania? I have asked many that I have had the opportunity to meet and the answers are the same. They are absolutely the same, but the order changes. They are surprised by; the first word is security and we are talking about tourists coming from Europe, we are not talking about tourists coming from Somalia or any other war front. We are talking about tourists coming from Europe, tourists who normally have no reason to feel unsafe in their countries. Security and then the sentence continues, - you go out in Tirana at night and you have no feeling that someone can come and do something to you, and take your watch from your hand or take your bag from your back, or harass you for some reason or other. As it happens today in many parts of the capitals of Europe, where you can't walk at night.

The second is the variety of beauty, what I was saying before. It is not a place where you come and master one thing, one kind of landscape, it is a place where you can see many kinds of landscapes and without having to move from a thousand kilometers and then the food and the cleanliness. There is no greater pleasure and no greater pride for me than when I listen to people who come from abroad and among the points they list that impress them the most is cleanliness.

Now what should we do? Now we have to do exactly those things that we said before and I don't want to repeat the ministers. We have to do something for safety to be the symbol of Albania for the tourists, like any friend when he enters an Albanian's house, according to the Canon, he is in the safest place, so everyone who enters Albania should feel the safest and this is much easier said and much harder to do and we have made a lot of progress in this direction with the Technical Intervention Team which includes everyone from the Police of the State, to the Fire Service, to the Health Emergency, will help the sense of security to extend beyond the fact that no one bothers you at night, but to be at any moment when the friend in our house needs a service, when the friend in the house our friend needs the ambulance, when the friend in our house needs the helicopter, when the friend in our house needs help when his life is in danger, for someone to come and save his life in those situations, especially in mountainous areas.

Then, if we come to cleanliness, here are all the mayors. I sincerely thank them; I thank them because I am and in a certain way in solidarity with them, I understand, I understand their stress very well because I know very well what it means to have Mirela on your head when it comes to following the garbage around Albania, but a lot has been done, something which must continue to improve in terms of cleanliness because it is not simply a word of mouth "we will host 13 or 14 million tourists" but keep in mind that they will consume and leave behind waste. It is a very big challenge.

I will not go on any further because I believe that I have gone on long enough, but I want to close with one last element, which is access to beauty, that talking about the beauty of Albania is one thing, about its diversity, but guaranteeing access to that beauty is another, which means infrastructure, to give opportunities to tourists, visitors to touch every place and more and more places of this body of Albania that has extraordinary graces and that has a great variety of beauty.

So, not only to constructs the roads, but also to create the possibility that those roads are safe, that the lighting on those roads work, and I am very pleased personally, because personally it is a very large load of messages and vents, which are completely understandable, of those who pass towards Fushë-Kruja after July-August which will soon pass by the Thumane-Kashar segment, open with totally different standards as part of the Blue Corridor or the Adriatic-Ionian highway which is our biggest project of infrastructure and that will continue with the other following segments to have one highway segment that puts us in the Mediterranean ring of tourism.

It is also a pleasure to open the Llogara tunnel which will enable a much faster access, a much safer access, a much more pleasant access I would say even though the panorama of the arrival around the top of the Llogara is extraordinary, but also the new road with the tunnel has an access to views which were unknown to us before and which are really spectacular for anyone who will pass there.

Meanwhile, I believe that in May we will open the international competition for Gjirokastra airport, which will serve the entire southern area. Belinda elaborated the reasons why Gjirokastra was selected, by consulting with international expertise, etc., etc. and she did not say a reason that is not an international reason, but a national one, because by placing the airport in Gjirokastra, one can be sure that the gasoline for the airplanes will be persistently saved. I'm convinced of that.

I believe, I hope that all together we will be very focused in this season to strengthen the image of Albania which is now totally a different image and it is not a different image because we managed to sell something that we do not have, but it is another image because anyone who comes following that image, finds Albania even more beautiful than the pictures show or than the videos they watch show.

These are the fruits of the contributions from all of you, of all the others who are not here and definitely, I feel sorry for those who do not want to accept it, but it is the work of the government too, it is the work of "the regime".

The regime has worked with foresight, it has worked with strategy, and the regime has one skill, among many others, that those fighting the regime do not have. "The regime" does not sleep.

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