There’s no single person or organization behind the protests—it’s supported by environmental activists, anti-corruption groups, and individual citizens, with a heavy presence of young adults. “Everyone just goes. We have a place, and we have a time, and we all go,” says Linda Alia, founder of Tirana-based Albanian Food Tours. She sometimes brings guests to the peaceful protests at the end of city walking tours, especially if they seem curious about what’s happening. “Everyone is there, there’s old people, there’s young couples with children, there’s stations where children can actually paint, there’s all types of people,” she says.
It’s not that the protesters are against tourism and development, either. “We actually want people to come and to invest in our economy,” says Alia. Plenty of good developments have come to Albania in recent years and have made positive impacts on the tourism industry, like new roads and airport expansions that brought new airlines and more direct flights.
But with the good has come the bad. “All of our politicians are corrupt,” Alia continues. “There’s all this money coming in, and we don’t know where it’s coming from. And in the end, there’s huge inflation.”
Albanians have seen this type of development before, Alia notes, pointing to a region called the Green Coast, along the country’s southern coast near Dhërmi. “It used to be a beautiful area, now it’s full of private villas and resorts that none of the locals can actually go to.”
Tourism on Albanians’ terms
At 10-year-old Restaurant Roshniku, just outside the UNESCO World Heritage city of Berat, manager Ardit Fiska says that, when it comes to tourism investments, “the thing that would help us is infrastructure” noting the lack of trains and difficulties of driving in Albania (traffic, roads, other drivers).
Five years ago, his family expanded their winery into the first certified agro-tourism operation in Albania, meaning that those coming to taste wine or take cooking classes had a place to stay. Now, guests learn to make flaky byrek in the wood-fired brick oven and sit down to abundant meals featuring an array of local cheeses, and—if they happen to luck into the spring season—crisp-skinned, silkily tender, roasted goat, before staying for the night. “Every year we are adding new rooms, and the village people here, they are turning their houses into guesthouses,” says Fiska. “We hope not to grow so much, to stay like this, growing slowly.”