“Tourism is a powerful economic growth engine for our country with great potential to generate direct and indirect jobs, upgrade the level of investment and facilitate foreign exchange movements. Our challenges are big, and so are the opportunities, having a territory that offers many wonderful attractions. The Alps, the lake, the rivers, and many kilometres of crystal clean and beautiful sea waters.
Our vision is to give visitors the opportunity to enjoy and discover the beauties of our territory. This would bring longer stays and more income. Bearing in mind, the great beauty that our city itself presents with the preservation of tradition, art, culture and the mystic Rozafa Castle. There is a lot to be done and together with all stakeholders, national and international experts, we will make it.”- Bardh Spahija, Mayor of Shkodra
During the conversation with the project’ team, Mr. Spahija emphasized the great potential of the city, especially when it comes to nature. He explained that the mountains, the lake, the rivers even though are not yet staged enough, offer a big opportunity to create high standards of tourism product. The big panorama of the city’ offer, also includes 40 km of beach, with 200,000 visitors per day on the coast in summer. Local government’s institutional capacity to provide tourism development, was at the centre of the discussions. This topic is affected by a number of issues, including individual capacities, resources (financial and physical), community acceptance, and of course governance. In terms of the concrete project, the mayor stressed the need for intervention in areas such as infrastructure and development in the mountain regions around Shkodra, access to the mountains must be created (poorly accessible) bringing youth into tourism – market labour – through education and training programmes. Transport connection to Tirana needs to be improved, along with the provision of boat trips on the lake and on the rivers – scheduled services with stops at visit points, hop on hop off.
