The Albanian Parliament is expected to pass through an accelerated procedure amendments to the tourism law, proposed by the socialist majority. The main aim of these legal interventions is to protect holidaymakers from the noise of construction sites that sprout up near hotel areas in the middle of summer.
During today's plenary session, the Chairman of the Socialist Party Parliamentary Group, Taulant Balla, stated that construction noise is disturbing the peace of tourists and damaging the country's image.
According to Balla, this is a recurring concern raised by many deputies from coastal and tourist areas.
"It is a concern of many MPs in tourist areas, where construction continues near hotels even during the season, disturbing tourists who have come to rest. We have proposed that in the draft law on tourism, construction works be suspended during the tourist season, guaranteeing a higher quality of the season and our tourist offer," declared Balla from the Parliament's rostrum.
Other key changes to the law
In addition to the "silence of concrete mixers" during the summer months, the proposed changes also affect several other vital points for the quality of tourism in the country:
No more "palaces that turn into hotels": The new law will stop the practice where a structure starts out as a residential building and is later transformed into a hotel without the proper standards.
Stars are no longer set by themselves: The classification of hotels with stars will be done with strict evaluation criteria and no longer with "self-promotion" by the owners. Balla took neighboring countries as an example: "We only need to look at Greece and Croatia. Stars can no longer be self-promotion, but an evaluation."
Waste management: The law aims to put an end to waste scandals, citing the municipality of Kavaja as a negative case that should not be repeated again. "The hotel in Kavaja cannot go and throw its waste in Lalëz," said the head of the SP group.
Precisely because of the urgency to guarantee the smooth running of the next season, the majority has requested that this legal draft be approved through an accelerated parliamentary procedure.
