Albania is presented at FITUR Madrid with "Albania All Senses" — Minister Gonxhja calls for the development of year-round tourism!
At the opening of the FITUR International Tourism Fair in Madrid, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sports, Blendi Gonxhja, presented the Albanian pavilion with the concept "Albania All Senses" and underlined the importance of expanding and professionalizing the Albanian tourism offer.
Gonxha emphasized that the pavilion will be attended by tourist agencies, tour operators, municipal representatives, artists and other actors in the fields of culture, folklore and handicrafts, as well as teams from the Ministry and state agencies involved in promotion. He emphasized the need to expand tourism beyond the summer season and classic beach offerings, towards year-round tourism that includes events, conferences, spectacles and destination products.
The Minister announced that the National Tourism Agency and the Coastal Agency will play a key role in the digital and international promotion of Albania, with the aim of increasing visibility and early bookings. He explained that the first two days of the fair serve mainly for negotiating contracts and closing orders, which are essential for better planning of the season and increasing the percentage of pre-scheduled bookings.
Gonxha called for sustainable investments and a more organic management of the tourist offer throughout the year, with the aim of increasing hotel capacities and optimizing hospitality structures. He invited visitors and partners to know and love Albania for its authenticity and the rich tourist range it offers.
In conclusion, the Minister thanked the Ministry's staff, agencies and partners who organized the participation in FITUR and expressed hope for a successful 2026 tourist season. He underlined that the fair offers important opportunities for business meetings, international cooperation and deepening relations with global tourism partners.
The full speech of the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sports, Blendi Gonxhja, on the opening of the International Tourism Fair in Madrid:
Good morning from FITUR in Madrid, where we are opening the Albanian pavilion with "Albania All Senses", with a number of agencies, partners, associations coming from tour operators and from all those who manage tourism at the level of companies and agencies, some of the best.
We have artists here with us, we have representatives from municipalities, we have teams related to the promotion of tourism in our country, tradition, culture, folklore, handicrafts. We have here of course employees of the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sports, who are here for their areas of responsibility, because tourism is increasingly not just the beach, the sea, umbrellas or sand, but we really, really need to have event tourism, to have destination tourism, to have spectacle tourism, to have tourism of the many activities of these sectors that our new Ministry now encompasses.
Here I am pleased to have the Coastal Agency and the National Tourism Agency, which play a key role and will continue to play a key role in managing the promotion of all forms of Albania and Albanian destinations, and we will of course work very hard with the agency, with the team, with the squad to have digital promotion, virtual promotion and the widest possible promotion for year-round tourism, with more than just the summer season and with more territory and more geography, where of course, the relationship with the world, the relationship with other partners, with countries, for occasions like this FITUR fair, give us the opportunity to have business meetings, to have meetings at the government level, to have meetings at the local level, to have meetings at the level of world, global tourism organizations or those that cover sectors, so that we have the strongest possible network in terms of information exchange, in terms of recognition of Albania, internationalization and everything. which is related to providing the most attractive information about the world, in relation to our country and an ever-growing curiosity of all those who are interested in visiting, spending on tourism in Europe, spending on tourism in the Balkans, so that Albania is one of the most preferred destinations and one of the highest demands to be seen and to become part of the plans of individuals and groups.
We will work hard for winter tourism, for conference tourism, for organization retreat tourism because we need to increase the capacities of our hotels during the seasons for the most difficult part, which is the winter part for us and we need to make investments more sustainable and we need to make them more organic with all the months of the year and have the opportunity to focus our support on promoting Albania and not to simply support the survival of some of the entities or for some of the sectors related to tourism. So I invite you all to keep your eyes on Madrid these days. At the end of the week, the fair opens for ordinary citizens, as well as for individuals who want to get information.
The first two days are at the level, as I said, of negotiating contracts, agreements, and closing reservations for many of those, I mean the collaborations that the Madrid Fair and FITUR are better known than all the others, which are among the most successful, because the highest number of contracts are closed, the highest number of orders are closed, which then allows us to have better planning of the season and accommodation in our country, where we know that we are suffering, because today we are talking about ten percent of planned tourism in terms of reservations, which is a figure that must definitely increase, because more planning means more sustainable investments, more programming and more optimization of capacities, of our structures and the entire system related to tourism and hospitality, perhaps other colleagues will also share here at different moments in meetings, both with you, and with the public, and with different information, other data will be online.
Come to Albania, get to know Albania, love Albania for what it is authentic, it is a real experience, it is a country with a lot of touristic offer and it is a place where you live beautifully and it is a place where you work beautifully, it is a place where you can be for tourism, you can also be for different activities. We will also be here to meet and promote events, as I mentioned, and project collaborations, which will have to do with investments to projects that have to do with activities in our calendar of spectacles and the organization of various holidays at the regional level, national level, seasonal level and others.
I greet you all and thank all those who have worked for the Fair, I thank all those who are here with us, I thank all the staff, the MTKS team, but also the agencies that are part of our system, I thank of course our ambassador in Spain, I thank all those who will be with us these days and who will share with us from the municipalities and from business and from tourist operators, the working time in Madrid to have a 2026 tourist season, the best ever. Thank you!
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