2007 Seasonal Tourism Survey at Cultural and Natural Sites in Albania

I am very proud to announce that my final report on the 2007 Seasonal Tourism Survey at Cultural and Natural Sites in Albania, is now available online at the UNDP Albania e-library. It can be downloaded at this link http://www.undp.org.al/elib.php?elib,985.
The text editing took a lot of time, that's why it was released so late, but the important is that now it is accessible to all the interested people. I hope it can serve as a tool to better understand the tourism situation and potential in Albania.
I'd like to thank all the people and institutions that collaborated and made this survey possible.
If you have any comments, please post them!

Mirupashim Albania!

Time has arrived to say goodbye to Albania. My experience here as UN Fellow has finished; in few hours I will be back home to Italy.
One year is a good time to get to know a country and its people and it is not too long to get bored of it. I am full of good memories and I am sure I will visit again this land.
This blog will not be closed, I will post in the following weeks more material; I have many other photos I would like to share. This last period I was too busy!

Thanks / Faleminderit / Grazie !

Ciao Shqiperia!

Questionable tourism data

In a previous post, Golden tourists in Albania?, I was describing how there are misleading tourism statistics for Albania. Fortunately I had the opportunity to organize a roundtable to discuss about it with the relevant involved institutions. The results were good, as you can read in this article on UNDP website: "Coordination key to reliable tourism data".

Didjeridoo TV performance

On 1 November I was invited by a friend of mine for a didjeridoo performance at a TV program. The didjeridoo (also spelled didgeridoo, didjeridu, etc.) is a musical instrument created by the Australian aboriginal people thousands of years ago. I have been playing it for many years, not in a professional way but in Rome I had my band, the Didje Open Project. As soon as I arrived in Tirana, I created few didjeridoos out of plastic pipes. Even though their sound is not as nice as the ones in wood (aboriginals use eucaliptus and bamboo), they work pretty well.
I was very proud to have had this opportunity to show to the Albanian audience this not so famous but incredible instrument. You can see this short video, unfortunately recorded from the TV with a bad sound quality, but I hope to post a better version soon. As you can see, I played with a local band (the bass guitarist is Angjelin, my friend) and we improvised on the moment.



In internet you can find many information and didjeridoo music. You can start from the link on the right column.

Road safety in Albania

Arriving in Albania you can notice immediately that the driving style is not very respectful of the road code. This feeling has been calculated with statistics and below you can read a sad news appeared around a month ago...

At a conference on road security in Tirana, a representative of PAMECA (Police Assistance Mission of the European Community in Albania) said that one has 20 times more chances to die in a road accident in Albania than in any other country in Europe. Director of Public Security Department in the State Police Rashim Borishi said that the year of 2007 has been the most tragic one compared to previous years when it comes to deaths due to road accidents. The participants in the conference proposed drafting of a strategy aiming at reducing the number of road accidents. According to Borishi, the greatest number of accidents occurs on the fist day of the week.

recycling&reusing

Some months ago in Tirana I saw these advertising posters about the impact of waste and possible ways to recycle it. It is a useful campaign for Albania, but in the current condition of the country it seems to have little sense. I mean there is no differentiated waste disposal and recycling. I have seen only some poor people, mostly Roma, look for aluminium in the waste bins. You can imagine how nice it is to empty trash bags and look for cans in the side of the streets!




Before recycling, we should think to reusing: many things can have multiple functions before being directed to the trash bin. It is usually enough a small manipulation to adapt the object to the new function. In these pictures you can see my personal contribution to the issue.

Here we use bottled water because tap water is not very safe. So I usually buy big 6 liters plastic bottles. From them I created vases for flowers and plants, baskets for fruits and spices, and from smaller bottle a glass for drying forks, knives and spoons...they work very well!

Give a second life! Use your creativity to find out how...I am not very good, but I am sure each one can do his or her part!
Please, if you have any other good ideas, let me know!

UNDP Albania conducts cultural and natural site survey

I return to inform you about one of my activities here in Albania, a visitor survey carried out in four Albanian tourist attractions. You can read a press release just published in the UNDP Albania website.
http://www.undp.org.al/index.php?page=detail&id=68