According to the Albanian Central Bank, tourism in 2013 marked a
record-breaking drop of 13%, while the spending of foreigners in Albania
dropped with 18%.
The Albanian Tourism Association says that this is affected by the lack of investment in this sector for the past 10 years, which has increased the spending of Albanians abroad with 3%. In this situation, the Albanian Tourism Association has reacted for the government’s failure to keep the electoral promise of reducing the tourism VAT.
“Taxes in Albanian are 300% higher than in the other countries of the region, and certainly that this affects standards and quality. Tourists cannot receive the same quality of Macedonia with the same price in Albania. VAT goes should go to 5, rather than 15%. Most of the countries have it between 5 to 7%, and many European countries have it at 5%. This is just an undeserved tax that from 0 goes to 20%”, says Zak Topuzi, head of the Hotel-Tourism association.
“By softening taxes, the first regulation would be that of formalizing the market, which produces taxes with real incomes through other sources for the state”, declared Enver Mehmeti, President of the Tourism Association.
According to the Tourism Association, the new tax package not only doesn’t make the tax burden easier for this industry, but it makes it heavier by increasing the tax on profit of big businesses at 50%.
If no measure will be taken for this sector, it will be even more difficult in 2014 and there would be a direct effect in the entire economy”.
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