70 young people, high school students and students in Gjirokastra, during a week under the training of local and foreign tourism experts, brought innovative ideas for the development of this sector, which is registering rapid growth in the south of the country.

“Impact Week” was the program developed in the premises of “Eqrem Çabej” university in which the young participants brought innovative ideas for fundamental issues in the economic perspective of the southern region such as: sustainable tourism, the challenges of the Vjosa valley, the food industry and agriculture. Among others, their measures aim at the qualitative development of tourism, the creation of jobs, the promotion of organic agricultural products, etc.

“We are here for the second year and we have tried to solve four of the main challenges of the region. We have experts from all over the world and we are engaging 10 teams to bring business ideas that would be of value to tourism, entrepreneurship, agriculture, and the food industry around the destination of Vjosa, Europe’s last wild river,” said Muktha Hiremath, expert of tourism.

“I’m Chris and my first experience with such a program was in Mozambique about a year ago.
It’s the magic of people from all over the world coming together to work on specific issues and ideas that bring people together to find solutions,” said Chistofer Belkieno, tourism expert.

“I am very happy to have led the winning group. It was a very practical and implementable idea. They brought to attention the high potential of local agricultural and livestock products due to the presence of many microclimates and decided to connect them with the end consumers who are citizens and restaurants. This is how the quality is guaranteed and the local product is not lost”, Vishaan Gungah, tourism expert.

The “Impact Week” program presented more than 10 innovative business ideas as solutions that came from youth for the development of the tourism sector and market in the Gjirokastra region