TIRANA, Oct 7 /ATA/ Minister of Tourism and Environment Mirela Kumbaro has held a meeting with operators of natural tourism, guesthouses and agritourism businesses near the Vjosa River National Park.
During the months of January-August 2024, the protected areas were visited by 3.8 million visitors, with an increase of 18% compared to the same period last year.
“Vjosa is a river, but also an economy. And it requires us to be very careful, because the first moment we can touch it or damage it unintentionally or out of desire to run a little faster, we find ourselves harming the future business. Therefore, this whole concept of tourism, which we call sustainable tourism, as well as ecotourism have created other sectoral activities in tourism”, said Minister Kumbaro.
Minister Kumbaro also emphasized the fiscal incentives such as the reduction of VAT to 6% for hotels and guesthouses, for agritourism it will be 5% and 0% for small business.
“These actions, which may seem to have no impact, today have expanded the economic chain and encouraged you to come up with new forms of tourism offer. We sent to UNESCO the complete file on which we have been working for a year with the National Agency of Protected Areas, to register it as a special category in the World Natural Heritage list”, said Kumbaro.
The Minister of Tourism and Environment also stated that the visitors who come to Gjirokastra visit Përmet and other municipalities of the district and according to her, the destination management organization “Visit Gjirokastra” as well as the seven municipalities of this district deserve credit for building a model of organized tourist destination.
“In such a small area, we can keep tourists for up to a week. And this is not done by talking only about Përmet, or Këlcyra, or Gjriokastra. Vjosa unites us all as a unique map with many proposals”, the minister said.
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