Now, Albania is country which have been seemingly explored and valued for its nature, seaside, culture, heritage and recently also for the cuisine and mountains, with an increasing number of visitors each year, which have raised a lot of issues regarding the capacities, infrastructure, services and moreover accommodation facilities and their image.
1.3 Demand and Supply for Accommodation Structures. The issue of the capacities. Sustained in the conditions that coastal tourism is for the moment dominating the market, it is obvious to conclude that 80% of the hotels registered are located in the coastline of Shengjin, Velipoja, Durres, Vlore, Sarande and Pogradec for its precious climate, lake and culinary. The major part of this hotels is considered small or medium sized hotels, since they offer less than 40 rooms and belong to family business. Yet the major part of these hotels does not meet the international standards for quality of space and service to meet the requirements of the foreign market and mainly fulfill the needs for domestic tourism accommodation. In mountainous areas the accommodation structures mainly represented by guesthouses have been constructed based in traditional principles or in modest architectural language. Till 2012 there were around 150 guesthouses in the region of Theth, Shkodra, Tropoja and Voskopoja. Maximal capacities in terms of available accommodation are offered during August (approximately 22.000, 53.000 beds), since domestic tourism is mostly happening during this month and 25% of the foreign visitors visit Albania during this month. In 2018, while Albania has registered the milestone of 1 million tourists who planned to spend their vacation in the Southern Riviera of Albania […] “1326 accommodation facilities (hotels, motels, camps, guesthouses, mountain shelters and other structures for short-term stays) were functioning throughout the country. The offer from 17.000 rooms and 38.000 beds” (INSTAT N. I., 2019) which is considered a very low offer for the demand in progress especially during the summer, by positioning Albania the last in the European Market of accommodation offer, considerably far also from the neighbor states (Monitor.al, 2019), even though this offer is quite inaccurate due to the informal offers in accommodation. Page 15 of 206
