The winners of “Wanderlust in Albania”, the International Photography Contest and the most beautiful promotional videos for Touristic Albania, were announced in a gala evening.

687 competitors from 40 countries of the world participated in this competition, from as far away as Australia, India, Japan, China and everywhere in Europe.

In the speech delivered on this occasion, the Minister of Tourism and Environment, Mirela Kumbaro, praised the initiative of the National Tourism Agency, which organized this international competition in record time.

“We decided that the competition will be international and the photographers will be those who have traveled Albania from all over the world and show us our attractions, which we often don’t realize we do have them. The photographs are oriented towards the most diverse themes, from the Adriatic coast to the food tables, folkloric and ethnographic elements or the map of different destinations”, said Kumbaro.

The minister reiterated that the initiative was taken as a need, leading to another initiative of this year, that is the tourist calendar of TEA events, where over 517 events were registered.

“The calendar will not be just that, but next year we want to turn it into a counter of tourist services and information. In November, we had 547,000 tourists and we are confident that we will maintain our position for 2024. By the end of November, 9.54 million tourists came to Albania. We are going to 365 days of tourism in every corner of the country”, she said.

Kumbaro emphasized that tourists remain the best ambassadors of tourism Albania. The director of the National Tourism Agency, Zana Çela announced that more than 7,000 photos were submitted to the competition.

Çela said that the winners were announced in 11 categories, where for each category two winners were selected for photographs and one for video reels.

Winners of “Wanderlust in Albania”:

Landscape: Fation Plaku, Bleron Caka, Aldo Tare

Agritourism and Culinary: Aldo Mustafa, Anxhi Celiku and Mirela Andoni

Architecture: Ergys Temali, Elvis Vrioni and Adelina Marku

Monuments and Archaeological Sites: Nikolay Shabarkov (Bulgaria), Antonio Lombardi (Italy) Duli Kasmi

Folklore: Ardian Fezollari, Naxhie Elezi, Bjori Thana

Panoramic photos and videos: Dajana Reci, Altin Serani and Beatrice Chan

Crafts: Mikaela Lala, Carolyn Perry and Thomas Hadinger

Ecotourism: Bleron Caka, Anxhi Çeliku, Thomas Hadinger

TEA application events: Idlir Abazaj, Ina Tepshi Nurjana Mullaj

Photo report: Albert Cmeta, Zeni Alla and Sara Zekaj

Sports Tourism: Alket Islami, Aida Dhefto and Altin Serani

/k.s/