International Tourist Arrivals up 8% in 2019

TIRANA, January 24

International citizen arrivals to Albania in 2019 rose 8.1 percent. According to the Institute of Statistics (INSTAT), the number of international citizen arrivals to Albania in January-December 2019 was over 2.4 million.
Moreover, the official stats confirm that arrivals from Switzerland saw the highest growth by 18.2 percent. In the meantime, INSTAT reported a 13.9 percent decline in arrivals from Poland.
Meanwhile, the number of outbound departures was 5.9 million or 9.4 percent higher than in 2018.
International arrival by country
Kosovo – 2.2 mln
North Macedonia – 753,533
Greece – 596,884
Italy – 467,745
Montenegro – 366,817
England – 133,175
Germany – 165,703

In general, the number of global tourist arrivals slowed down in 2019, yet Europe remained the most visited region in the world with more than 743 million people.
According to UNTWO growth in international tourist arrivals depends on key drivers such as strong economies, affordable air travel, increased air connectivity, and enhanced visa facilitation.

The increase in arrivals from Switzerland and Germany can be explained by the improved connection through direct air routes from Albania to Germany and Switzerland.
Low-cost carriers Albanwings, Wizz Air and Edelweiss operate weakly routes from Tirana to Dusseldorf, Dortmund, Memmingen, and Zurich. Meanwhile, British low-cost EasyJet inaugurated its direct route Tirana – Geneva on November 28th. Wizz Air started operating Vienna –Tirana – Vienna in December, while it announced five direct flights from Milan-Bergamo, Pisa, Bologna, Verona, and Venice-Treviso to Tirana on spring-summer 2020.  Also, full-Service carrier Air Albania inaugurated its routes to Italy in 2019.
In the meantime, EasyJet will start new service from Gatwick to Tirana will on May 1, with three flights per week. Meanwhile, Albawings will operate flights to Hamburg and Frankfurt starting the end of March.

On the other hand, Transavia will suspend Amsterdam-Tirana-Amsterdam service starting the month of April. Based on the airline ‘s website, the last flight from Tirana to Amsterdam will be on March 30th.
Find more information on Airlines that fly to Albania

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Data source: INSTAT