Deputy Prime Minister Minister Belinda Balluku speech at the Conference “Tourism in Albania 2030”
Hello everyone!
First of all, I would like to say that we are in uniform; Mirela, some other girls, and I are all dressed in sky blue today, not really coordinated with the carpet. But I don’t think that sky blue is the color of tourism; tourism is also green now, as our colleague Blendi Gonxhe said.
Tourism is no longer just about the sea; it’s about every corner of Albania. I would like to start my speech with something that I haven’t written down here, but while listening to my colleagues talking about the extended season and new tourist areas, I would like to share with you a tourist area that no one would have thought of: Bulqiza.
Bulqiza, known for its mines, its sad stories, and its great challenges, will soon host the presentation of one of the largest and most innovative projects in Albanian tourism, together with Blendi and Dritan Agolli from the Albanian Development Fund. This project doesn’t refer to the mountains, the plains, or the coast; it refers to a mining area that will revitalize and enhance a valuable asset of the Albanian Army, known as the Division. The Division will become one of the most interesting tourist attractions, where we will build a museum, include hospitality services, and have a whole entertainment area. We have designed it to be one of the largest paintball facilities in Albania and the Balkans, which will become a destination for all residents of the capital, as they will be able to reach it in just 30 minutes, thanks to the new Murrizit tunnel. So, I started with a destination that no one thought would become a tourist hotspot. God has blessed Albania with so much beauty that tourist attractions can be built anywhere, and what’s more interesting is that each one is unique in its own way.
It’s always a pleasure to gather here; it’s always a pleasure for me to be with my colleagues, my ministerial colleagues, the mayors, and the esteemed ambassadors who are now part of our team. I don’t know if in your long diplomatic careers, you’ve ever become part of a team in another country. To become part of the government team, the local government team, and the foreign experts who come here to help us to contribute to a country as much as the citizens of that country do.
This was a memorable tourist season. We call the 2023 season a dress rehearsal; it was a soft opening, and surely 2025 will be even stronger.
However, I don’t want to repeat all the data that Mirela mentioned, and she was right to share them. We can talk a lot, but what remains and is indisputable is the data. It is the analysis that we do after the season. And it’s true that we’re meeting now in mid-October, and you know why? Because the season isn’t over yet, we could have met in November.
My office, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy, is located on Skanderbeg Square, and to be honest, there are two moments during the day when I have to leave the office for meetings. It’s incredibly difficult because in front of the ministry, where Bunk’Art is, there are hundreds of tourists, and it has nothing to do with the summer season; they will continue to come in the winter as well. On the other hand, when you’re in the meeting rooms, you can hear guides with microphones explaining the history of our country, and you can see hundreds of young people or even older people listening to the history of a country that was inaccessible to them. First it was closed by communism, and later only bad things were said about Albania, and they were afraid to come. Meanwhile, today’s tourist flows are undoubtedly unpredictable, even for us.
When we started the year at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy, we had a number of targets and forecasts to achieve, related to the number of vehicles traveling on our new roads, such as Thumanë-Kashar and the Llogara tunnel, and the number of tourists arriving by air, which is the largest and most significant number. But none of these projections were close, as all of them were exceeded many times over. From January 1 to September 30 of this year, in only 9 months, 8 million, 250 thousand passengers were processed at Mother Teresa Airport, which is 53.7% more than in 2023. Unlike all other countries, we do not compare ourselves over five- or three-year periods. Our comparisons, if you look at them, are always year by year.
So, we’ve had an exponential increase from 2022 to 2023, and it has continued into 2024, with 53.7% more passengers at Tirana International Airport. In the same period, 53,320 flights were handled at Tirana International Airport, which is 44.5% more flights compared to 2023. Our forecast for the number of passengers at Rinas Airport by the end of the year is 10.4 million, but looking at what has happened in the first nine months, we are sure that even this planned figure will be exceeded many times over.
On the other hand, it should be noted that we are forecasting that this year will end with 69 thousand flights, evenly distributed throughout the year, unlike before 2022, when the season started at the end of June and ended at the end of August. On a single day at Rinas Airport this year, we had 45,100 passengers.
Meanwhile, the number of new destinations has completely changed in one year. From 109 new destinations to Europe from Rinas Airport last year, we have 136 new destinations this year. All this positive development in numbers hasn’t come easily. This whole infrastructure development in the country is based on a solid national strategy that we presented together with the 2021 government program, and I always say with great pride that we have followed it point by point. Not only has it been developed over a long period of time through well-designed and detailed projects that have been implemented through international competitions, but we have also adhered to the calendar and the deadlines for the implementation of each project.
It should also be noted that 2025 will have a series of innovations in infrastructure, but what is most important for the tourism industry is the delivery of Vlora International Airport, giving Albania one of the largest airports in the region, with a Category E runway of 3.2 kilometers. We are striving and aiming, and I am confident that we will succeed in starting and having transoceanic flights that will no longer limit the number of tourists coming by several flights from other continents.
This year we have built 44.5 kilometers of new roads, but not just any roads. They are category A highways, nothing to envy, nor are they different from European highways.
This year, together with Prime Minister Edi Rama and my colleague Mirela Kumbaro, we opened the Thumanë-Kashar road to all road users on June 28. From the evening of June 28th until September 30th, 2 million, 700 thousand vehicles passed through the Thumanë-Kashar axis, a record number for other highways in the region, let alone for Albania, as was once thought.
Meanwhile, from July 5 to September 30, 715,198 vehicles passed through the Llogara tunnel. So, these are indisputable figures; they are figures that are the only answer to all those who continue to slander a country that is flourishing worldwide in the tourism industry, which has the full attention of all the international media, and believe me, we are not a government that is adept at lobbying foreign media to promote our country; we’re very bio in this respect; we’ve allowed them to take from this country whatever they want. The ‘Maldives of Europe’ is not a nickname invented by the government but by the foreign media or even the visitors themselves who are now coming and enjoying our country up close.
In addition, a number of tourist attractions have been made available, such as the Palas-Dhërmi and Orikum-Dukat routes, which will continue to be improved, as well as the connections they will have with other important parts of the road infrastructure, such as the connection of Orikum-Dukat with the Llogara tunnel or the continuation of the southern road, which we have promised. Meanwhile, we have a series of works to do, a series of projects, starting with the international tender for another section of the Blue Corridor, Milot-Balldren, a section long awaited by the entire northern part of the country, not only because of the heavy daily traffic, part of which has been solved with the opening of Thumanë-Kashar, but also because of the tourist areas that the north now has.
I often talk with Benet Beci about areas that used to be closed for months because of the electricity in Theth, where we certainly weren’t prepared for the number of visitors, which is actually increasing, and on the other hand, we can no longer keep it closed in the winter, because as soon as we got the necessary equipment to clear the snow of that amount—which was very difficult with the equipment we had—Theth became accessible to all visitors, both local and foreign, even in the winter months, when the snow in those areas can reach over 2 meters. All of this has brought us new responsibilities: new tourist areas and regions that haven’t traditionally had tourism, demands from different operators, and all of this requires intensive investments, but above all, well-studied investments. Because only through well-thought-out investments will we be able to provide sustainable services that will also bring economic growth to the local economy.
Today, we must all put the interests of the tourist at the center of our work, because if we consider the tourist as the only source of income for our country, it must have good conditions for services, and that depends on us as public and private partners. On the other hand, we cannot always put the burden on the state, because we are very clear about this: if the state builds the road, the private operator must create the conditions for the tourist. It is a contract and a job that we have to do together; we cannot turn back.
In conclusion, I thank you all for your cooperation. Let’s think positively and believe in our project, which is a project for everyone. We will continue together to promote tourism in Albania, to improve the infrastructure, to increase the facilities, and above all, to build our work to respect the tourist so that they feel welcome, safe, and above all, respected in our country.
Thank you very much!