After Kosovo, Italians also start to "abandon" Albania, arrivals in June fell by 4 percent

2025-07-29 07:47:00, Ekonomi CNA

After Kosovo, Italians also start to "abandon" Albania, arrivals in

Italians, lured in recent years by the idea of cheap holidays in Albania, seem to have calculated differently for their summer holidays.

For the first time since the start of the "boom" of Italians to our country, June 2025 took a negative turn. This group marked a 4 percent decline in the sixth month of the year compared to the same month a year earlier.

In June, the figures for the entry of foreigners by country showed that there were 111 thousand Italians entering our country. A year ago, this figure was around 116 thousand.

Local tour operators warned at the end of May that individual advance summer bookings along the coast, especially in Vlora and Saranda, were lower, and this seems to include the Italian group. The latter generally settle in the summer along Vlora, Durrës and Saranda.

The decline in bookings was also highlighted in July by an article in Corriere Della Sera that quoted Italian agencies about a decline in bookings to Albania as a result of rising prices.

According to this article, our country used to offer a good quality/price ratio, but now it no longer exists. At the same time, a new approach to the Puglia region, which is one of the most frequented in the summer season, has made Italians find it more profitable to stay in their country as prices have normalized.

Regarding the 6-month period from January to June, 510 thousand Italians visited Albania, with a 5 percent increase compared to January-June 2025. Italians have become perennial visitors to Albania in a mix of weekend tourism, culinary tourism, but especially health tourism, which has been consolidating for years, not to mention business travel.

All of these have maintained a stable number in this first half of the year, but what is striking is the slowdown in growth. A year ago, growth in the first 6 months was around 57 percent, while now it is only 5 percent.

The slowdown or worse, the decline in the number of visitors from Italy should be a wake-up call for the way tourism has been allowed to develop without a clear direction. This group is the second most important after Kosovo, which has also had its own fluctuations in the last two years as a result of visa liberalization but also the depreciation of the euro. For the first half of 2025, arrivals of citizens from Italy accounted for 11% of the total and those from Kosovo 34.5%./ Monitor