Although tourism may be the locomotive that can pull the country's economy in the coming years, Albania still has work to do to reach the standards of other countries in the region. According to data from Eurostat, during the first seven months of the year, Albania recorded about 3.8 million overnight stays by foreigners, a significantly higher figure than last year.

This is a positive indicator where it can be seen that Albania is becoming more and more attractive to foreign tourists. However, if compared with the region, it can be noticed that Albania registers higher overnight stays only compared to two neighboring countries, North Macedonia and Montenegro, which have registered about 1.2 and 2.9 million overnight stays respectively.

On the other hand, Croatia and Serbia tend to register higher numbers compared to Albania, with Croatia reaching 5 million and Serbia having 7.3 million overnight stays.

On average, a foreign citizen in Albania spends about 2.4 days, taking into account all the entries of foreign citizens in Albania. In total, in the second quarter of 2024, 780.1 million overnight stays were registered in the accommodation structures of EU countries, a slight increase of 0.2% compared to the same quarter of 2023.

Foreign visitors (non-residents of the country, both from EU and non-EU countries) accounted for around half (49.0%) of all overnight stays in the second quarter of 2024 with large differences between EU countries. Most foreign nights were recorded at the beginning of the year in Cyprus (94.8%), Malta (94.7%) and Croatia (91.0%).