Minister of Tourism and Urban Development, Elgantina Gjermeni held a speech at “Reputation War”, the third international conference, which took place in Paris, France during her four-day official visit.
Gjermeni’s speech entitled “How to change the image of a place which has had a bad reputation for many decades?”, highlighted several positive events which occurred in Albania during 2014, the winning of the EU candidate status, the visit of Pope Francis and many others. The Minister focused on the image of Albania during the post communism period, often a damaged image by several negative occurrences which were in most of cases misinterpreted by international media. In her speech, Gjermeni underlined the promotion of Albania as a potential touristic place by many international travel and tourism magazines as National Geographic Traveler, Telegraph, Wanderlust, Skylife, ect.
“If you take a look at Albania’s efforts in changing the reputation, you will see that we tried hard to change the negative image inherited by fifty years totalitarian isolation. We cannot provide unique solutions but we are learning to implement the best practices, which have succeeded in almost every country in Balkan,” she added.
Gjermeni brought to the attention the excellent relations between Albania and France, not only in the economic sphere but even in culture and art. Many Albanian artists live and contribute in joint cultural programs in France. “Nowadays, Albanians believe that Albania is no longer in transition and it can offer new development opportunities. We have applied several important policies to boost and enhance the development of key sectors,” stated Gjermeni.
Reputation War is an international conference, whose speakers are personalities and states’ high-ranked officials which share among them their experiences in holding important governmental positions and the changes they bring.
News source/photo credits: ATA
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