The number of foreign tourists who visited Albania in July increased by only 0.4% year-on-year, reaching 1.8 million, the statistics office, INSTAT, said on Friday.

Visitors from Southern Europe made the largest group of foreign tourists, totaling 1.2 million, INSTAT said in a statement. The number of domestic tourists rose 3.9% on the year to 837,520 in July.

Operators had predicted that this summer season was expected to be relatively weak. Individual bookings for July-August are lower than a year ago, especially from Vlora to Saranda. Those who are missing are the diaspora and Albanians from Kosova. The most stable part remains organized tourism, which respects the figures of the contracts with signed guarantees. Tourist operators fear that the not very good evaluations that Albania is receiving recently from foreign agencies may take us a step back.

"Apart from organized tourism, which is growing because there are guaranteed contracts, i.e. prepaid and respected, individual reservations have shown a weak performance. Except for Shëngjin and Velipoja, where the main attendance remains from Kosova, along the entire coast from Durrës to Vlora and Saranda, individual reservations have been less than in June 2024. This is most noticeable especially in Vlora and Saranda," Rrahman Kasa, Chairman of the Albanian Tourist Union, previously told Monitor.

Despite investments and measures taken, the sector suffers from poor infrastructure, traffic, waste, noise, and active construction sites in tourist areas, while recently, basic problems such as water shortages have also emerged. The continuous increase in prices has also caused some holidaymakers to leave, as Italians, who were in decline in June, and are the second largest group after Kosovo, with about 1% of the total.

The slowdown in the flow of tourists has also been reflected in lower prices. In the first week of July, the panorama became clearer, and the shortage of beaches, which were only full on weekends, brought a chain of hotel price cuts, as well as aggressive sponsorship campaigns on social networks. From Saranda to Ksamil, Vlora, and Himara, prices were revised down by 10-25%. Borsh and Qeparo were the only ones to increase due to demand, while Durrës and Golemi remain the regions with the best price/service ratio.

Meanwhile, the increase in prices in recent years has led Albanians themselves to choose to leave the country, with Greece being a favorite destination. INSTAT reported that in July 2025, 782.849 Albanian citizens were counted as having left the territory of Albania, marking an increase of 11,1% compared to July 2024. The entry of low-cost air operators is another reason that has encouraged Albanians to leave the country.

Furthermore, INSTAT reports that in 99% of cases, the entries of foreign citizens have been for holidays and tourism, with an increase of 0.2% compared to July 2024. Meanwhile, entries for business and professional purposes have marked a significant increase of 15.6%, reflecting the increased interest in Albania, also in economic terms.

This trend confirms the growing potential of Albania as a country of importance on the tourist and economic map of the region. The authorities are emphasizing the importance of sustainably managing this growth to guarantee a positive experience for visitors and long-term benefits for the country. In 2024, foreign tourist arrivals to Albania increased 15%, reaching 11.7 million.