Today, the meeting “Digital Platforms that promote tourism. Assessment of the current situation” was held at the the University “Luigj Gurakuqi” in Shkodra, within the PLACOD project. The meeting, conceived as a round table, opened the second phase of the activities “Promoting the territory in the digital era”. Moderated by Prof. Eliana Laçej, who underlined the indisputable importance that technology has assumed today, the speakers brought their thoughts, reflections, institutional and personal experiences on the topic.
Prof. Valbona Karakaçi, Department of Literature, USH, an expert in communication, addressed issues related to tourism and the transformative role of digital communication. Her speech focused on the analysis of the relationship between tourism and digital communication, describing its positive and negative aspects; on the overlap between technology and communication; on how to be efficient in digital communication; on the future of digital communication in the tourism sector. His reflections were accompanied by videos and digital materials, with detailed statistics on social media users in Albania, ranking our country among the avant-garde in terms of digital use.
Renato Lumçi, Tourism Officer, Municipality of Shkodra, presented “Shkodra Smart Tourism”, a modern digital platform with various information on destinations, hostels, businesses and social services. The website www.visitshkodra.al will offer the possibility of purchasing tickets for museums and other certain services online, organizing individual tourist packages, promoting local events and providing a CityPASS card, which remains the biggest challenge in implementing this platform. Such digital promotions make Shkodra a modern destination and improve the local infrastructure.
Prof. Bresena Kopliku, Head of Communication, Scientific Research and Projects Office, USH, spoke on “Digital Transformation and Tourist Experiences” emphasizing that digitalization has changed tourism, has overcome seasonal tourism by widening the range, as well as the geographical origin of tourists, has had effects on the labor market. Referring to the surveys, the speaker considers a particular typology of tourists in Shkodra compared to that of tourists in Albania for the reasons given here, such as being solo travelers (not in groups), young people who like adventure tourism, authentic experimenters, users of digital devices, informed about tourism in Shkodra through social networks, especially TikTok, and who choose Shkodra as a destination as part of the region, which also constitutes a sustainability for tourism, albeit with low incomes. Despite the growing use of technology, the digital infrastructure is still lacking, which stimulates innovation in this direction.
Elton Shpuza, IT specialist at USH and head of the “Gjiro n’Shkodër” platform, informed about its content available in four languages (English, Spanish, Italian, German and soon also in French). It provides data on urban, intercity and local transport, information on museums and monuments and services to travellers with individual tourist packages, from transport to accommodation, through third parties. In addition, through this platform, tourists are informed about how to book accommodation at hotels. The platform had a share of up to 1,500 clicks per day in the peak period of the tourist season, appearing among the first search results on Google for several keywords.
The valuable reflections expressed by the participants of the round table also serve the goals of the PLACOD project, which aims to document the surprising itineraries of travellers of the past, immortalized in books of memories and impressions, and then transpose them into digital format, as the era of globalization requires.
