The Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sports, Blendi Gonxhja, invited this Friday to the “Review” show with Greta Topjana on Euronews Albania, spoke about tourism in our country. During his speech, Gonxhja said that the Ministry is working to connect culture, tourism and sports to promote the event economy, archaeology and activities that increase income from visitors.
Among other things, he added that work is being done daily to open new sea and land trails and put them online for nature tourism. The Minister emphasizes that not everything needs to be paved, as rural roads have their own charm for adventure tourism, while adding that work is continuing on basic infrastructure.
He stated that the Archaeological Park of Bylis and that of Klos are being opened. The Minister emphasized that new visitor centers are also being built in Apollonia. He said that the National Archaeological Museum of Durrës has been reopened, which according to him has had a great interest and boom in local and foreign visitors.
“For years we have had a ministry that, not coincidentally, merged with culture, tourism, and sports, because we are working hard on the event economy, we are working hard on destinations that have activities, we are working hard on the heritage part, the whole archaeology part, the whole experience part.”
This is something that is being worked on. Even those trails that they said, there are indeed many enthusiasts from the associations, but there is also a lot of work being done by the Protected Areas Agency. They are all being put online, they are in applications, we maintain them together with the Ministry of Environment after the separation.
They have the part of protected areas, we have the part of trails outside the protected areas. That is, we have a lot of problems, because there are problems that we need to discuss today, but from this point of view, I think that we should still be proud and we are fine.
We then have to deal with the part of how much we can extend it, how it can be as organic as possible, how we can get as much money as possible for a period of stay that could possibly be even shorter. We are saying, we really want a long period of stay, but it is better to get more income for a shorter period of stay on average, unlike what we should have and more income. But the thing is how we will follow the work of informality, how we will follow the work of what we will have to reinvest back.
We have a lot of these things that are being worked on, meaning every day there are two or three, we launch two or three projects, open paths, and yes, not everything can be done at once because it is very difficult.
Even the white roads outside are very beautiful. In France there are villages with white roads that if you tell them “I’m going to asphalt them”, they will revolt because they have their own charm in those white roads. So, the idea is that the Development Fund is working.
We are working now, the new Bylis and Klos parks are opening, a visitor center is being built. The visitor center in Apollonia is being built. I don’t want to give you government propaganda, I’m simply saying that there is a reason to be, because there are a lot of positive numbers, but the reason to be good in the sense that these are being opened.
“Although I have a concern, for example, we just opened, just reopened the National Archaeological Museum of Durrës. There is a boom in visits and even people want to come in the late hours, because Durrës lives until late and so on,” he said.