Hilton Garden Inn will manage, under its own name, a hotel in Tirana, that has been opened for two weeks now. The official opening ceremony will take place on September 26.
The construction of the hotel, which is located on the Gjergj Fishta boulevard, cost about €19 million, all of it Albanian capital, mainly belonging to Albanian entrepreneur Ali Selmani. In 2014, Selmani signed a multi-year management contract with the Hilton Garden Inn group.
Following the departure of Sheraton, Hilton Garden Inn will be the only well-known Western brand operating in Albania, and, alongside Rogner Hotel Europapark, one of the two hotels with a foreign manager in Albania. Unlike Hilton Garden Inn Rogner also has a foreign owner. The hotel will serve middle class clients – prices range from €100-€160 a night.
This is a very beneficial development for the capital, the tourism industry, and foreign relations. It is also a presence that will cast Albania in a good light with regards to foreign investment.
Most of all, it is a success of Albanian entrepreneurship that managed to solicit an important international hotel company, in an entirely private attempt with no government help whatsoever. Sheraton came to Albania with direct support and facilitation from the Albanian government, but left the country at the beginning of 2018.
However, instead of congratulating and being grateful for this private entrepreneurship achievement, Tirana mayor Erion Veliaj was quick to spin the story in order to take on personal merits by misinforming the public opinion.
Last week, the Tirana municipality released a press statement saying that Veliaj visited the hotel. The announcement – titled impressively “International Hotel Giant Hilton Opens In Tirana On September 26” – directly claims and clearly implies not only that the investment is an achievement of Veliaj’s, but that even the presence of Hilton came as a result of the work done by the Tirana municipality under the leadership of Veliaj.
At the beginning of the announcement, Veliaj is quoted as saying: “I usually inspect public works, however this one was a work done via a public-private partnership.” In reality, this is a flagrant lie, as neither the investment, nor the Hilton managing contract, have anything to do with the public sector. They are wholly private, and cannot be considered in any way a public-private partnership.
The statement further implies that Hilton Garden Inn decided to come to Tirana as a result of the mayor’s achievements in the city. This is yet another piece of misinformation, as Hilton’s agreement with Selmani was signed in 2014, more than a year before Veliaj got elected Tirana mayor.
The paragraph in which Veliaj tries to sell Hilton’s presence as a result of Tirana’s large tourist influx, an influx that, even if real, is still lauded as a Veliaj achievement, consists of cloying propaganda and needs little commentary (keep in mind that the Hilton deal was signed in 2014, before Veliaj became mayor):
According to the mayor, the good work done in the capital has significantly increased the amount of tourists, but also the need for further work. “Sometimes we fall victims to our own success. The more famous a city becomes, the more tourists come, the more places where they can rest are needed. I think that Hilton has helped us, because it has acquired a fantastic spot in another area of the capital, by the Lana river, in a completely rehabilitated area, in order to accommodate a lot of tourists,” the Tirana mayor asserted.
In a refined and insidious, way, throughout the whole statement, Veliaj tries to make the public think that the hotel will be a Hilton one, not a Hilton Garden Inn – in order to exaggerate the importance of the investment and the hotel. Naturally, the statement is rife with superlatives, as, obviously, whatever Veliaj does is superior.
Nonetheless, this is a good day for Albania, the usual political megalomania of its politics notwithstanding.
