Albanian Tourism Struggles to Escape Shadow of COVID-19

A report by the country's Institute of the Statistics said that pre-COVID, tourism employed about 64,000 people in 2019 and contributed some 3.23 per cent to the country's GDP.

However, tourism was hit hard in 2020 because of the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the year saw far fewer entries by Albanian or foreign visitors.

The number of foreign nationals visiting Albania was 58.5 per cent less in 2020 compared with 2019, at about 2.6 million, another report from the Institute of the Statistics. The Ministry of Tourism stopped publishing reports related to tourism in February 2020.

After another difficult spring season this year, with many restrictions still in place, the situation has started to change for the better in summer, even though this year's figures are still far below those from 2019, experts say.

Photo caption View of a small boat through tree leaves from the main boulevard in Saranda, some 240 km south from Tirana, part of Albania known as the Albanian Riviera, Albania, 02 April 2012. EPA/ARMANDO BABANI

A sector dependent on three or four countries

Besnik Vathi, from the Association of Tour Operators in Albania, said the 2020 season had been the most difficult ever for Albania, and this year's spring had not been much better. Nor was he optimistic about autumn.

"We have started receiving cancellations for the autumn, for September, October and even for November," Vathi told BIRN.

"The only tourism that Albania has at the moment is beach tourism, and this is mainly determined by three of four countries that comprise the main weight, like Poland and Ukraine. These are countries that have generated our beach tourists," he said.

Another factor that...