As expected, Italians are the group of foreign tourists who held the record in 2023 in Albania, compared to other European or regional countries, excluding Kosovo, which traditionally bears the main weight.

Official data from the Ministry of Tourism and Environment regarding tourism statistics show that around 1 million Italians visited Albania last year.

As a percentage of the total visitors resulting in 10.15 million, Italy accounts for about 9 percent.

Kosovo is the country that bears the main weight of tourism in the country, where around 43 percent of total entries come from it.

Patriotic tourism continues to dominate the figures regardless of the significant increase in the share of foreign visitors from other countries. Specifically, from Kosovo, around 4.4 million visitors entered from January to December 2023, an increase of 67 percent compared to 2022.

The two other countries that hold a significant share of tourism in the country are North Macedonia and Greece, from which the number of visitors increased by 10 percent and 38 percent respectively compared to the previous year. Also, the increase from Montenegro between the two years is estimated at 44 percent.

Another group of tourists that saw a significant increase in the country during the past year are Germans. Until December 2023, they were 312,000, an increase of 66 percent compared to 2022. This group accounts for 3 percent of the total weight, making them the sixth-largest group of visitors in the country.

Following in terms of the number of foreigners who visited our country more are England, Poland, and Turkey.

“In December 2023, among the countries with the highest entries of citizens into Albania, Poland, Romania, and Kosovo had the highest increase compared to December 2022. During 2023, among the countries with the highest entries of citizens into Albania, China had 177% more than in 2022, Turkey had 110% more, and Finland had 105%, compared to the same period in 2021.

In December 2023, the region with the highest number of entries of foreign citizens into Albania is the European region with 571,348 citizens, followed by America and East Asia/Pacific, with 9,845 and 2,617 citizens respectively,” the Ministry’s publication states.