Over 1 million domestic and foreign visitors visited museums, castles, or archaeological parks in Albania last year, marking a 46% increase in cultural tourism. Official statistics from the Ministry of Tourism and Environment show that museums are led by the one in Kruja, which was visited by over 110 thousand tourists.

Second in terms of the number of visitors is the Historical Museum in Tirana, which was visited by 99.7 thousand tourists in 2023, with an increase of over twice compared to 2022.

Third comes the Onufri Iconographic Museum in Berat with over 75 thousand visitors, which is a figure seven times higher than the number of visitors in 2022. Fourth in the ranking is the House of Leaves Museum, where about 49 thousand visitors were reported, doubling compared to 2022. In total, museums were visited by 391 thousand tourists.

As for castles and other monuments, they were visited by over 271 thousand visitors, with a 53% increase for 2023 compared to the previous year. The most visited turns out to be the Gjirokastra Castle with 217 thousand visitors. Meanwhile, among the archaeological parks, Shkodra ranks first with 125 thousand visitors, followed by Butrint with 119 thousand visitors.

“During 2023, 28 of our cultural institutions were visited by 1,005,815 foreign and domestic visitors. The number of visitors in 2022 increased by 46% compared to the previous year.

Regarding revenues from visitors, in cultural institutions for 2023, 342,295,950 lek were obtained, which is about 43.2% more than the revenues obtained during 2022,” evaluates the Ministry of Tourism.

The year 2023 brought a record number of foreign visitors to the country with a total of 10.15 million, while it seems that 2024 is also showing the same trend where the January figures are up by over 30 percent compared to January 2023.