
Minister of Tourism and Environment Mirela Kumbaro says that the Russia-Ukraine war will have negative consequences on the summer tourist season.
Kumbaro said that this year the lack of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian tourists will be felt and according to her, over 130 thousand tourists were expected to come from Ukraine alone. The Minister further adds that she hopes that the arrival of tourists from other countries will mitigate the effects of these consequences.
"Undoubtedly. In fact, our forecasts for January changed very quickly, but also for the first part of February, when we were preparing for a very high number of tourists this year. If we refer to this part of the tourism market that was coming to us. from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, I can say that we expected about 130 thousand tourists from Ukraine alone, a good part of whom had even prepaid. It is important that this war, this conflict ends as soon as possible and at the lowest possible human cost, while tourism will recover, but on the other hand we also have some reorientations of tourist flows, which seem interesting related to tourism coming from Italy, from France,"which have generally been flows going to Greece, there is a reorientation towards Albania."said Kumbaro for the Voice of America