By Muriel
OP-ED
There's a scene from childhood that many Albanians remember. You'd come home from school with a not-so-good grade and try your last excuse: "So-and-so got even less." The answer would come immediately: "Are you comparing yourself to the weakest in the class?"
I was reminded of this when Bloomberg published India's Tourism Paradox. The question that accompanied the story was fantastic for our propaganda: how is it possible that India, with the Taj Mahal, the Himalayas, dozens of UNESCO sites, and a history spanning thousands of years, attracts fewer foreign visitors than Albania?
In Tirana, this is the ideal headline to launch into a success speech. Except Bloomberg wasn't writing about the Albanian miracle. He was writing about the Indian paradox. And this difference is fundamental.
Albania has experienced a real tourism boom. To deny it is as propaganda as to proclaim it a governmental miracle. In 2025, about 12.4 million foreign nationals were reported. But entering the border does not automatically mean a unique tourist, a week's vacation, a hotel night or high spending.
Therefore, after 13 years of Edi Rama's rule, the serious question is no longer how many people entered Albania. The question is: What kind of Albania did they find after they entered?
Because boom is not a strategy. The government did not build the Ionian Sea. It did not raise the Alps. It did not invent Berat, Gjirokastra or Albanian hospitality. Its task was more difficult: to administer this wealth so that after twenty years it would be worth more than it is today.
This is where the balance becomes problematic.
Look at Golem. In large parts of it, it is increasingly resembling a giant summer dormitory with access to the sea: building after building, apartment after apartment, hotel, bar, sunbed, traffic, construction site. In March 2026, IKMT itself stated that there were 55 development permits in Golem and Qerret and warned that the construction sites were harming tourism.
This is the Albanian paradox in a photograph: we are promoting an Albania that, in some of its most precious areas, we are consuming as we promote it. Qerreti is feeling the same pressure. Shëngjini and Velipoja confront us with the same question: how much concrete can a destination hold before it loses the reason for which the tourist came?
The strategic mistake is that tourism has become increasingly confused with real estate. But the builder and the hotelier are not asking the same question.
The builder asks: How many square meters can I build? The hotelier asks: How do I make the customer come back next year? One sells the square meter. The other builds a reputation.
Even the myth that the state has not provided incentives does not hold true. There are incentives. For certain categories of hotels and investments, there are fiscal incentives, special statuses and accelerated procedures. Therefore, the most important question is another: for whom does the system work and what does the public get in return? In a country with a finite coastline, an unexplained privilege generates suspicion.
But tourist culture is not built on strategic status. It is built on the road, cleanliness, transportation, sanitation, bills, menu, tranquility, public beach, distance between sun loungers and the way the customer is treated. The tourist should not be seen as a wallet that must be emptied during the five days he is here, but as a customer who must be convinced to return for the next five years.
This is where propaganda collides with economics. You can produce fantastic videos, pay for campaigns, and fill Instagram with Ksamil and Theth. But advertising can only bring the tourist the first time. Albania must bring him the second time.
The tourist doesn't sleep on Instagram. He sleeps in a hotel. He doesn't swim in a promotional spot. He swims in the sea. He doesn't walk in a render. He walks in the street. And when he leaves, the question that matters is simple: Was it worth it?
This is the statistic we need to look for. Not just how many came, but how many returned; how many nights they stayed; how much they spent; how many would recommend Albania to a friend; how many said: I want to come again.
There's an old saying, often attributed to Saint-Exupéry: "We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children." For tourist Albania, this is not just philosophy. It's economics.
The coast is capital. A preserved beach can generate income for generations. An intact landscape can be economically valuable even after a hundred years. A concreted coastline is not rebuilt with a VKM when tourist fashion changes.
A country can become rich today and at the same time become poor tomorrow. It only needs to consume the wealth it produces to earn money.
Therefore, Bloomberg should not serve us only to boast. It should worry us. The world has already discovered Albania. The challenge is no longer to convince it to come. The challenge is what Albania it will find when it comes - and whether it will have reason to return.
And then the old question of the Albanian parent becomes much more serious:
Okay with the weakest in the class.
What about the best, when will we start comparing ourselves?
