Tourism Geography, Tourism Potential, and Key Social Challenges of the City of Tirana in Relation to Physical and Human Attractions
Tourism Geography, Tourism Potential, and Key Social Challenges of the City of Tirana in Relation to Physical and Human Attractions

Summary/Abstract: Albania, located in the southwest of the Balkans, was a closed country governed by an isolation policy similar to that of present-day North Korea between 1945 and 1991. Under this regime, all domestic and foreign travel was subject to permissions, strict controls, and mostly prohibitions. This made Albania physically integrated into the European continent but humanly and economically disconnected, almost as isolated as a remote island. There were a limited number of state-owned vehicles and hotels in the city, which were used for the accommodation of party officials, visiting diplomatic guests, or for the mobility of people within the country during events. Tourism was seen as a threat to the regime because it increased the interaction of the country's people with the outside world, and therefore, the country remained isolated between 1945 and 1991. After this half-century-long isolation policy, Albania discovered tourism, began to utilize its attractions thanks to its riviera position, increased its interactions with surrounding countries, and became one of the countries hosting more tourists than its population. At this point, this study, conducted to emphasize the touristic features of the city of Tirana, was developed and updated on a chapter from the 2013 doctoral thesis titled "Natural Environment and Human Relations of the City of Tirana and its Surroundings." In the study, strategies, documents, laws, regulations, national and international reports related to global and local trends in the tourism sector were also consulted. Additionally, basic trends were analyzed and compared based on data obtained from publications by the Albanian Institute of Statistics (INSTAT), the Bank of Albania, the Ministry of Tourism and Environment, UNWTO, WTTC, and the Department of Geography at the University of Tirana, as well as other relevant sources. Conflicting and uncontextualized figures were not considered, and information that would meet the study's objectives was preferred. The transformative impact of tourism on space, urban transformation, and the attraction effect created by the country's unique position were addressed, and the road networks and their effects on neighboring countries without sea access were considered. Finally, during face-to-face interviews with individuals who lived during the communist period, information about the conditions of that period was sought, and the touristic attractions and tourism-related problems in the country's capital were detailed.

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