Visitors to National Parks Increase, Karavastaja Leads, Followed by the Albanian Alps

2025-06-04 12:10:00, Aktualitet CNA

Visitors to National Parks Increase, Karavastaja Leads, Followed by the Albanian

Over half a million foreign tourists visited protected areas in the country in the first three months of the year. Official data, already processed for March and published by the Ministry of Tourism and Environment, show an increased interest in nature tourism.

"Data from the National Agency for Protected Areas shows that during March 2025, protected areas were visited by 198,923 domestic and foreign visitors. In the first three months of the year, protected areas were visited by 556,792 domestic and foreign visitors, with an increase of 6% more than the first quarter of 2024. The region with the largest number of visitors is the Korça Region, which accounts for almost 33.6% of the total number of visitors. The largest increase was in the Gjirokastra Region, which has a 3-digit increase," the Ministry's report states.

First in the category of what tourists have visited, official data shows that the Natural Parks Category has 13 areas which have been visited by 63,641 visitors, of which 72.4% are domestic visitors.

"The largest number of visitors for this category is in the Divjaka-Karavasta National Park, the number of visitors to this Park accounts for 29% of the total that visited the National Parks in March 2025, and the second most visited this month is the Albanian Alps from the Shkodra part (23.5%)," the publication states.

Meanwhile, in the Natural Monuments category, 33 areas are declared, but during the month of March there were visitors in only 24 of them. These areas were visited by 28,163 visitors, of which 87% were domestic visitors. The largest number of visitors is in the Sarisalltik Natural Monument of Kruja (23.1% of visitors), which is followed by the Benja Thermal Springs (21%).

The category of Managed Natural Reserves and Natural Parks and Natural Monuments includes 26 areas, but only 21 of them had visitors for the month of March 2025. The number of visitors for this category is 31,008, where 78% are Albanian visitors. The highest number of visitors is in Qafështama (35%), followed by Lake Shkodra (20%)./ Monitor Magazine