Tourism in Albania, Kosovo declining trend in 2022, here are the markets that retreated and the emerging ones

Albania experienced its best historic year in 2022 in tourism, where the number of foreigners breaking into the country's territory was 7.5 million by December, while of these, according to tourism statistics of 7.1 million are currently tourists.

While various markets have undergone apparent growth and interest in visiting Albania, some markets seem to have waned.

The figures point to a negligible decline in the larger market visiting Albania, which is Kosovo, but this tendency is certainly not a good signal. Official figures show January-December 2022 2.6 million Kosovo Albanians visited Albania.

A year ago, so in 2021 the figure is more or less on the same level, but the first percentage point is a 0.04 percent drop in tourists from Kosovo.

It remains unclear how the assessment of tourists has been made in conditions where the free transition to customs between the two countries was launched during the joint government meetings during the summer.

The negligible fall of 2022 is not seen as a problem at the core, but what is related is the fact that patriotic tourism can suffer a considerable flow with already announced visa liberalisation for Kosovo.

Another drop market during 2022 was Serbia, where the contraction was 1 percent in proportion to the previous year, while 51 percent have also declined from India.

Ukraine and Russia have also registered contractions with 65 per cent and 13 per cent respectively, and this is directly related to the war that began in February 2022 where Russia attacked Ukraine.

Just as there has been contractions in most markets on the other side, there has been growth.

“During 2022, of the countries that have the highest citizens' entrances to Albania, Spain has had the highest growth of 3.6 times and England with 85.9 %, compared to the same period in 2021”, the publication of tourism statistics says.

While in the number, the highest growth has seen citizens' entrances from Italy, Greece and Montenegro (see the graph).

In the meantime, as in 2022 and this year, it has started well for tourism, where the numbers have been rising to visitors, while tourist operators expect growth in the sector.

As visitors come to worry about the industry related to limited human resources that could negatively affect the quality of service offered to tourists. /Monitor. al