Tourism/ Kosovo "flees" after visa waiver, Poles and Spaniards "get upset"

Despite a steady, albeit modest, growth compared to the previous year, tourism is showing interesting trends in terms of the groups that are visiting us.

Official data from the Citizens' Movement from the Institute of Statistics confirms once again that the main group that is dominating in terms of weight when it comes to foreigners (apart from Kosovo Albanians) are Italians. The latter account for 11.6 percent of the total visitors for this year in the period January-May.

Italian arrivals increased by 7.8 percent compared to the same period a year ago. Italians are increasingly preferring Albania for weekend tourism, that mix of health and leisure as well as business and entertainment.

Kosovo, on the other hand, has recorded a decline of 6.9 percent compared to January-May 2024.

Since visa liberalization in January last year, Kosovo Albanians have had the opportunity to travel to new destinations, often using Tirana International Airport, while for weekends or summer holidays, a significant group of them are preferring Greece.

Despite this trend, Kosovo remains the most important group in the country, in terms of visitor share, 33.7 percent of the total.

Meanwhile, another group that has seen a decline in the first 5 months of this year are the Poles. The latter have recorded an 8.6 percent decrease in arrivals, compared to the same period in 2024. The Poles remain the most important group in the country when it comes to organized tourism in the summer period.

Tour operators have confirmed that foreign agencies that bring Poles have increased their guaranteed contracts in 2025 and that this summer there are expected to be more visitors who prefer to come in an organized way, but last year, a significant portion of them came individually.

The continuous increase in the price of packages, under the argument of costs and the depreciation of the euro, made negotiations difficult last year between agencies and hotels.

At the time, tour operators said that Albania must continue to remain competitive in order to be attractive to this group of visitors who come with "all-inclusive" or "meals and hotel (no drinks)" packages.

This year, Poles individually seem to be preferring destinations closer to them, with Croatia being one of them, marking an 8 percent increase in this group in this country between January and May.

The Spaniards are also the next "disappointed" who in January-May saw a 7.5 percent drop in arrivals compared to the same period a year ago.

Just as there are groups in decline, there are others with a significant increase, a positive signal for the performance of tourism this year as well. Germany and France have recorded significant growth in the period January-May 2025 with 29% and 40% respectively compared to the same period a year ago.

Switzerland and Austria are also up 21.6% and 22.8%. In total, 3.4 million foreigners visited the country by the end of May, an increase of 1.9 percent compared to a year earlier.

The expectation is that 2025 will mark another historic record in terms of the entry of foreign citizens into the country, although the growth rate is appearing slower than the previous year.

INSTAT reported that a total of 987,077 foreign nationals entered the country in May. This number increased by 1.4%, compared to the same period in 2024. The pace of tourist growth has slowed significantly in the first months of this year. In May of the previous year, 38% more foreigners had entered the country.

For the first 5 months, a total of 3.4 million foreign citizens entered the country, an increase of 3.9% compared to the same period a year ago, from the 38% increase in January-May 2024./ Monitor