The capital hosted today the 70th meeting of the Commission for Europe of the World Tourism Organization, which selected Albania as a co-organizer, with the friends of the General Secretary of the UNWTO Zurab Pololikashvili, and delegations from all over Europe; a great opportunity in such times when the impact of tourism on the country’s economy is substantial.

Prime Minister Edi Rama, who welcomed today’s work, said that “We really hope that with tourism, we still understand more, not only about the importance of tourism for the economy, but also about the feeling of self-identification”.

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Thank you very much! I will speak in English as I have always clashed with the translators, so they also can rest a bit.

You are all welcome to be here! I will not make a long speech, that speech which was actually presented to me by my employees, of course well seen by Mirela, with a lot of data and facts, with facts that speak about the success we’re experiencing in this area, but I will just say a few words about what you have come to. And I will start with the fact that in these years of our lives, I mean for me and for Mirela, that is, for our generation, we have known a period of history in which we were completely separated, separated and isolated from all of you. From you who came from the west, but also from you who came from the east.

Of course, for you who come from the east, you can perhaps better understand everything that we have gone through, however I am sure, what we have gone through is beyond imagination, the isolation that we have experienced and the brutality that we have encountered in this country, so before or more precisely, until 3 decades ago, we had only 5 thousand tourists and they were not 5 thousand ordinary tourists, but 5 thousand Marxist-Leninist tourists, whose history was closely watched by the authorities who came from the extreme left parties of the whole world and had the opportunity to enter Albania, which at that time was the North Korea of Europe. So, with the West, with the East, with American imperialism, with Soviet social-imperialism, we were at war, so tourists would come to a country that was proud, that, as we were told then, was the only real Marxist-Leninist country in world. They went through customs at Rinas airport, where I believe most of you went, and immediately had to go to the barber if they had a beard or if the men had long hair because beards and long hair for men were not allowed.

So even Karl Marx or Engels would not have had the opportunity to enter Albania without going through the barber at the airport to remove their beards or long hair. So think for a moment how strong was the isolation and how strong was that Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, which we had to experience.

While today we have a completely different reality with more than 10 million tourists in Albania.

Of course you all know that this is not only success, this is not only a good thing, in itself of course it is, but it is also a big challenge because there are many things that we have to think about, that we have to solve, if we want Albania to move forward in a sustainable way, if we don’t want Albania to lose its special beauty, if we want Albania to be a destination where tourism is an added value, and a place through which we create a platform to celebrate humanity by bringing together people from the most diverse countries, of any color, of any language, of any culture, of any history.

And here I mean that we must preserve nature, we must build things with beautiful, amazing architecture. On the one hand, we should create the right opportunities for people to get more from their work, from their land, from their business, but on the other hand, to have the opportunity to leave more of Albania for future generations. We don’t want to lose our country while building an important tourist destination and I know that you all know the mistakes that have been made in other countries, in the countries where you come from, in terms of issues like development for example. I believe you have experienced these things yourself. You have passed these stages of development, so you have a much greater experience than ours, so you have learned a lot from your mistakes.

However, I believe that we should not make the same mistakes. We have to learn from your mistakes and that’s why we appreciate your organization, the World Tourism Organization, so much and that is why I am here at this meeting, because what this organization does is really fantastic. But also what Zurab is doing is fantastic, not working simply by going from one place to another and just making some meetings and talking about different numbers, but sharing expertise, knowledge, experiences, of the mistakes that have been made in the past so that they are not repeated. These are the most important things, and I sincerely hope that we will learn as much as possible from the mistakes that others have made so that we do not make them. And we have already made some mistakes of our own and let’s not forget that we live among the Greeks and Italians and to be among them means to be in the “dolce-vita”, in that carefree life where one also can make mistakes because on the one hand one might not have fully understood the blessing that God has given, how generous the God who created this wonderful country with these amazing parts of the country has been, but history has also been so generous because through those great historical events that have happened in Albania, we have now a great historical heritage, but still we are not Switzerland and for whatever reason maybe it is better not to be Switzerland, but we should have the same way of understanding as the Swiss have, to understand what we should leave to future generations so that we do not spoil our country and its beauties, but leave it better for future generations.

So as not to take up more of your time, I would like to say that everything here seems very nicely done and this place is a wonderful place to have such a meeting, but we have no natural light here, so Zurab, you have to take measures for the next times to have wonderful sun, so people not only listen to the speeches but also have the opportunity to leave the hall a little, because it would be really bad if the conference ended in the middle of the night and people did not have the opportunity to enjoy a little of everything that Tirana has to offer, but also the wonderful weather that we have, because we want you to come back to Tirana and thank you that by coming to Albania, you have increased the number of tourists. You are indispensable to us and we have never had a bigger delegation than this Marxist-Leninist one of yours, but you do not need to go to the barber, but of course leave your hair as you want, we have no prejudices about anything and enjoy your stay in Tirana, enjoy Albania, we are very proud to be part of your community and we very much hope that we will be a member of this community with full dignity and honor. And we very much hope that through tourism we will understand even more, not only the importance that tourism has for the economy, but also for the sense of identification, but also for that sense of humanity that we can offer to each other and it is truly fantastic that I see so many of you, so many countries from which you have come, in this hall, here in Tirana.

Of course I would say that Zurab said very nice words about me, some of which were exaggerated, however, these are the cases where we can exaggerate, but nevertheless I am not repaying the debt to Zurab. I will simply say one thing that is quite clear and obvious, that without this gentleman here and without the fact that he is so direct and so honest and so willing to help, we would not have achieved these things that we have achieved, that we are here today as the host party for all of you. This is an honor for us and do not forget that in this country you can meet Muslims of different types, Sunnis, but also Albanian Bektashis, you can meet Christians, Catholics or Orthodox, you can meet atheists of course, like everywhere, but here we have a common belief that is above any religion which is hospitality. And our common law written in the Middle Ages, the code of Lek Dukagjini says that: The house of the Albanian belongs to the person who visits, and that one honors God by honoring the visitor.

So today I hope you feel like a God and believe in us as the God of hospitality. Thank you to everyone!