Rama: Vaccination, opening with Kosovo save tourist season

Rama has said the government has learned from last season and has promised that this time the border with Kosovo will be absolutely open to tourist hospitality, and tourist operators will have less austerity.

Albania has also been counting on Kosovo for this tourist season, the second in pandemic time.

With the possibility of making an intensive vaccine, we will very insist on developing the entire vaccine process, with the goal of within June maximum, but hoping by the end of May, to vaccinate half a million citizens. Vaccination is essential to the breaking of the links. Very important that with vaccination, we become obstacles to the tunnel, where we are finally seeing light. And I believe the facts speak for themselves. Regarding the significant change that has taken place in the tourism sector, all your experiences and what we've heard, the potential is still too big, and the possibilities are huge”, Edi Rama said.

The renowned Albanian entrepreneur, president of “Business Albania”, Luan Bregasi, at a meeting with Prime Minister Rama, has proposed the idea of vaccinating hotel staff, to enable foreign tourists to serve during summer in Albania.

We expect a better season than the world and Albania are vaccinating. I'd suggest that if we made a better offer this year, as these vaccines are coming, I think the best offer would be to tell foreign tourists that you'll already have all your vaccinated personnel... It is a very good offer to gradually be thought to vaccinate even our waiters and cooks, that if tourists from Israel were to be vaccinated this offer didn't look much like a tourist offer”, Bregas said.

Prime Minister Edi Rama said entrepreneur Luan Bregasi's idea will be discussed and examined.

I hadn't imagined this idea of vaccinating hotel staff. At first glance it sounds interesting, so we're willing and very seriously going to appreciate it and see if it can be combined with the offer... I promise you, it's just an idea that I've heard, and here we're talking about it, but we're going to study it and see it very kindly”, Edi Rama replied to Luan Bregas' request.

Albania's prime minister has declared during meetings in coastal cities, both Vlora and Lezha, that tourism in Albania as the most endangered pandemic sector succeeded in Kosovo. While it has attracted the attention of tourist operators that the hotels were full, they did not cut prices.

I was with a tour operator and outside the cameras confirmed to me what I actually know, that last season was not a waste. While the pandemic was really scary for the sector, but the movement that we did by not closing the border with Kosovo and the fact that Albanians in Albania could not leave out made the hotels full. I don't believe that when you took the money you didn't seem less than they were giving to the Albanians of Kosovo and Albania, that it's not low. This season has been a significant test of how much money is spent by Albania's Albanians for tourism and generally goes abroad. The other that has greatly helped the sector, which is indirect, has been that many of Albanians who were otherwise taught to flee to Budva, Greece, Italy, Spain and Turkey recognised Albania. This is concrete. A large part of them knew Tirana-Durra, the maximum as far as Vlora, and that's where their” finished, Edi Rama said at the meeting with tour operators in Vlora a month ago.

The number of Kosovo citizens visiting Albania for 2020 is 1,379,360. Although with a drop of 38.6% compared to the same period in 2019, Kosovo has the lowest decline in the entry of its citizens to Albania for 2020, which accounts for the lowest compared to other countries in the region and Europe.

In the autumn months, but even in the beginning ones, the number of citizens from Kosovo who have visited Albania has recognised growth compared to the summer months, where citizens from Kosovo have made the pandemic a challenge when it comes to traveling to Albania.

In the fourth quarter of 2020, the number of citizens from Kosovo who visited Albania was 519,435 people, out of 407.760 people who had visited it in the fourth quarter of 2019, marking an increase of 27.4%.

In 2020, however, tourism in Albania is the most hit by pandemic. The dependence on Albanian economy from tourism is precisely why the impact on the overall economy has been greater in Albania than in other countries in the region, which many international institutions have highlighted since the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (BERZH), IMF to “Standard and Poor”