Despite the global pandemic, Albanian Minister of Tourism and Environment Blendi Klosi claimed today that tourism will be the first industry to inject money back into the country’s economy. Klosi’s enthusiasm stands in contrast to the predictions of the IMF who has foreseen the tourism industry will be hit the hardest by the coronavirus pandemic, and the November earthquake.
Klosi stated that the Ministry of Tourism would be eager to fill a void in the region’s tourism market by acting quickly to cater to tourists from “countries with low levels of infection” like Ukraine and the Baltic States. He also said that he hoped tourism would begin its activity anew in late May, though with increased health safety and social distancing measures.
The government’s financial relief plan that consisted in a one-time payment applied to only 10,000 tourism industry workers, even though the Albanian tourism industry in 2017 employed at least 9 times that number. When asked about the discrepancy, Klosi said that the financial relief measures only applied to people who, on March 12, were registered as employees of hotels. He did not address the fact that the tourism industry mainly operates via seasonal workers, who would not have yet been employed as early as March.
