00:02Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama acted as his country's ambassador at the Euronews Travel and Tourism Summit on Tuesday.
00:10Speaking at the event, Rama praised the development of tourism infrastructure in Albania.
00:15He said the country's approach helped attract nearly 12 million foreign tourists last year
00:20and was quick to point out that Albania did not enjoy the same immediate success as some of its Balkan
00:26neighbours.
00:27When Croatia was a destination for many Europeans, we were the most isolated country in Europe, North Korea of Europe.
00:39Despite the surge in Albania's popularity as a tourism destination, Rama also acknowledged that the development of tourism must be
00:47managed.
00:48One of the downsides of this is that by having tourism that is developed based on the middle low income
00:57tourists,
00:59we risk to have a country under big stress on its infrastructure, on its nature, on its services, and we
01:11risk to not get back what we can.
01:15While investing on a tourism of high income, the high-end tourism, we lower the stress on the country and
01:26we get more from them.
01:28Rama also commented on the controversial 1.4 billion euros project linked to US President Donald Trump's son-in-law.
01:36The proposed project is to be developed on the inhabited island of Sazan and its adjacent shoreline,
01:42which sits within a protected area around the northern lagoon.
01:46The announcement of the project sparked numerous protests in the country in recent months.
01:52If the construction will go ahead or not, this will be decided not in the streets but in the science.
02:02So, if we have an environmental impact assessment that tells us where we are right and where we could be
02:14wrong,
02:15we will adjust what could be wrong and we will go for the right.
02:19If it will say to us, no way to touch here, we will not touch.
02:24But it's science that should decide. It's not the street and the ideology.
