On the Albanian coast the atmosphere remains summery as the end of the year approaches. At the Fllad club hotel, west of the capital Tirana, you can swim in the Adriatic, and even if the nights are cool, the pool bar serves unlimited mojitos and grenadine vodkas. “Before coming here I didn’t know anything about this country”recognizes Nancy Mignon, 39 years old, on vacation in Florida with her partner and a couple of friends. “The travel agency told us: ‘Albania is new, it is beautiful and cheap. So we tried.”It evokes this daycare employee, who lives near Charleroi, in Belgium.
The small group is pleasantly surprised, like everyone who meets in this club, run by the tour operator FRAM: the Mediterranean atmosphere, the beach, the visits to Tirana or the historic towns of Gjirokastër and Berat… And the all-new hotel, with its large rooms and shiny tiles, even if its immediate surroundings, with multiple buildings under construction, are of little interest. “We launched two clubs this year in the country and brought 6,000 people: it exceeded all our expectations, book François Perrin, director of Albania at FRAM. “We have just signed for a third for 2025.”
One of the reasons for this success is the prices offered in this country, which is one of the poorest in Europe. In Fllad, the clients, almost all French, had paid, for these All Saints’ festivities, between 500 and 600 euros per week per person, on a full board basis, including the flight from France. “It’s much cheaper than Greece or Croatia”says Franck Legrain, 51, on vacation with his partner. “And it allowed us to discover a culture and a history that we had no idea about”, continues this commercial director of an SME who lives in Gard.
Other formulas are just as economical: Vanessa Lefranc, a lamp designer from Fontenay-sous-Bois (Val-de-Marne), estimates that she spent “around 1,000 euros” (flights excluded) during her week here at the end of October for herself and her children aged 16 and 19. In this country the size of Brittany, the family traveled in a rental car and stayed in a hotel or in rooms on a farm, reserved on the Booking or Airbnb platforms. a trip “ultra exotic” between beaches, lakes and mountains, that their teenagers have “beloved”. “We always feel far from the crowds, except in certain places, like the birth of the Blue Eye”relates. “We have the impression of having discovered Albania at the right time, before the arrival of mass tourism”continue Mr. Legrain.
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