"Sustainable tourism, a challenge" - Rama in Davos: We are trying to maintain the balance between development and nature protection
Developing sustainable tourism is one of Albania's challenges. "From the session on the topic "The way we will travel", at the World Economic Forum taking place in Davos, Switzerland, Prime Minister Edi Rama shared our country's experience, focusing on development projects on the one hand and nature conservation on the other.
The session was moderated by Richard Quest from CNN International, USA, with panelists: Minister of Tourism, Saudi Arabia Ahmed Al-Khateeb; Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism at the European Commission, Apostolos Tzitzikostas; CEO, Trip.com Group, Singapore Jane Sun and Xavier Rossinyol, Global Chief Executive Officer, Avolta AG.
Full discussion:
- Richard Quest: Protocol requires me to start with you, Mr. Prime Minister. I've seen the numbers grow, of course tourism is an important part of your country's growth. But how do you do it in a sustainable way? How do you do it?
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Before all this happened, we had the challenge of achieving what has been achieved, we face the challenge of maintaining the balance and trying not to lose what we need to preserve, while building what we need. It is a very big challenge because Albania has wonderful beauty, an incredible diversity and in the meantime we need to have more investments. So, how do you balance this? This is the problem, a big problem. We are trying to do the maximum, by increasing on the one hand the amount of protected areas and by creating more means to transform what is protected into a resource, development and on the other hand by engaging many extraordinary international architects to help us have projects of different quality from those we have seen in the region around us. We in Albania have the fastest growing airport in Europe over the last two to three years and we have even surpassed Belgrade, which was the most important regional airport. To give you some context, once upon a time we were the North Korea of Europe.
- I've visited it, I've been there, in the old days when it was like that.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: Then it seems to me that you worked for some agency that was not friendly to democratic countries because no one could enter, or else you had some Marxist connection.
- No, no, England was playing Albania, so they had to allow us to bring any journalist.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: I'm not sure Richard, but who has nothing to hide..
- Yes, good effort, Mr. Prime Minister.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: At that time, we had or had an airport, which was practically deserted. To come to Albania, you had to be a Marxist-Leninist and I'm not kidding. We only had an average of 5,000 tourists per year, while last year we closed with almost 12 million, which is a country with almost 2.8 million inhabitants and meanwhile an increase in traffic with extraordinary entry and exit, meanwhile the airport has had a very significant increase. We are opening a new one now in Vlora.
-I am very attracted to the issue of Saudi Arabia and Albania and this attraction comes from the fact that you have the opportunity or even the obligation, arguably, not to repeat the mistakes of more mature markets. Paris has the Eiffel Tower, it has the Louvre, so there is nothing we can do about it, people want to go, but you have the opportunity to diversify from the south, from different countries to visit along with religious tourism which has extraordinary figures.
Prime Minister Edi Rama: I want to add something that I think is important in this regard. Yes, we have some advantages that we are a little behind in the meantime, so to grow or to develop compared to what others have done, however, it is not in human nature to learn from the mistakes of others. How many times have you been told that marriage is not a good idea and you still get married, for example. So Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries are an extraordinary place from which you can learn and as you learn or as you learn the way they do things, you discover that beyond the myths, beyond the stereotypes, they are investing extraordinarily in knowledge and investing extraordinarily in education at the highest level and skills at the highest level. This is what we are trying to do in a different way. As I said before, we are engaging extraordinary architects from all over the world, who are very happy to work with us and we are giving life to architectural products that you do not find in our region.
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