Tourist Albania gets stuck in traffic

Tourism in Albania is growing faster than the roads meant to support it. Traffic on routes to the coast, the North and the Southeast is becoming a direct cost for holidaymakers and tourism operators.

The North and the Center account for around 63% of visitors staying in accommodation structures, but they continue to face congestion on key segments.

Interventions in the South have eased some of the traffic flow, but the regions carrying the heaviest tourism load still remain confronted with traffic problems.

The country’s challenge is no longer measured by the number of tourists, but by the quality of the experience they have from the moment they begin their journey until they reach their destination.

On many summer Sundays, Ela, her husband and their 9-year-old son wake up to the sound of the alarm and rush out of the house.

It is not work or some deadline that sends them out in a hurry, but traffic, or more precisely, avoiding traffic on the way to Golem or Lalëzi Bay.

“If we want to avoid getting stuck in traffic, the latest we can leave our home in Tirana near ‘Don Bosko’ is 7:30. If we leave later, we will be forced to spend a good part of that time in traffic. Sometimes it becomes so exhausting that we would rather not go to the beach at all and just stay in Tirana.

The times we do make the effort, it is only for our son. It feels more like a race to leave quickly and come back just as quickly than a relaxing day,” says Ela. She says they never stay later than 15:00 and return in the scorching heat.

Ela’s story is the story of many families in the capital during the summer, who choose to spend one of their weekend days at the seaside. Every year, an endless cycle of traffic bottlenecks is repeated, turning the summer season into a nightmare in whichever direction you want to go.

As investments worth billions of lek pass before our eyes in projects under implementation, under tender or still on paper, their effect in making life easier for Albanians, but also for tourists, especially during the peak summer season, still does not seem to be felt.

And while in speeches our tourism “shine” is never missing, what is failing to reflect that same brilliance is the ability to respond to this tourism with concrete measures.

The government still does not seem to understand that travel time, road safety, route predictability and ease of movement are just as important as the hotel or the beach for a visitor. These should not be a luxury, but a standard for the citizens of this country.

In this respect, the country faces a clear contradiction. As tourism demand grows, the road network at the country’s main junctions is experiencing continuous overload.

Tirana-Durrës, the nightmare that has not ended for a decade

The problem begins on the Tirana-Durrës highway, the country’s most important economic artery. This route links the capital with the country’s largest port, with Tirana International Airport and with the coastline where most summer tourism is concentrated.

Almost every year, users of this highway face frequent works, which initially were on the asphalt layers. This often happened during periods of heavy traffic flow in the summer season.

Currently, the road is in a widening process that began some time ago and, although the first part of Lot 1 was announced as open in May, traffic does not appear to have found a solution. The intervention by the Albanian Road Authority, which aims to bring the segment up to category A motorway standards, is taking place in parallel with other works.

Specifically, works are under way at kilometer 5 of this highway for the Laknas overpass, something that has brought lane restrictions on one of the lanes of the new highway. Meanwhile, another project is expected to begin for the secondary road running parallel to the highway.

The road is being procured by the Municipality of Tirana and foresees works from the roundabout at Hygeia to Megatek. It is not very difficult to understand that if these works begin in parallel, traffic, which is already problematic now, will become even worse.

The Albanian Road Authority has stated that the phases of the widening project in the second part at the Kashar overpass will continue until 2027, and temporary traffic restrictions and reduced speed limits will remain in force.

While in the long-term view the investment is considered necessary, in the short term it brings a direct cost for tourism and beyond.

A tourist who lands at the airport and faces unexpected delays on the way to Durrës, Golem or Kavaja immediately forms a negative perception of the destination, something tourism operators have repeatedly pointed out. In a regional market where Greece, Croatia and Montenegro compete for the same visitors, even small differences in access quality can influence tourists’ choices.

Golem, crowned by organized tourism and heavy traffic

If the Tirana-Durrës highway represents the national problem, Golem represents the local one. The area has become one of the main centers of coastal tourism in Albania, especially for organized tourism that comes with guaranteed contracts.

But Golem’s secondary road continues to remain insufficient for the volume of vehicles circulating during the summer months.

At the peak of the season, long traffic jams form, lasting for hours and significantly reducing the possibility of movement. One of the solutions often mentioned as a way to improve this situation is opening the upper secondary road, so that the two secondary roads would each serve one-way traffic.

Because of a conflict related to ownership rights, involving a house that must be compensated and demolished, the secondary road that would bring cars from Golem toward Durrës remains blocked.

Tourism operators told Monitor a few weeks ago that the government had reached an agreement on this and that the plan for this road would soon be implemented, but so far there has been no concrete step and seasonal traffic in the Golem area will remain the same.

On this road, what is most problematic is that the infrastructure has not always been built according to safety standards. On many segments, bus stops are located near the traffic lanes rather than in designated spaces outside the main traffic flow.

This creates risks for pedestrians, passengers and drivers, who are forced to stop in the middle of the road.

The bottleneck on the new Thumanë-Kashar road is creating traffic

Another problematic junction is where the Thumanë-Kashar toll motorway connects with the Tirana-Durrës highway. The opening of the Thumanë-Kashar highway was intended to improve traffic flow and ease the connection between the North and the center of the country, but this does not appear to have happened.

In practice, the road’s connection to the existing network often creates a “funnel” effect, where all the traffic that once unloaded in the Kamza area now merges with Tirana-Durrës traffic. The result is slower circulation and the formation of long lines of vehicles, especially during weekends in the tourist season, causing traffic to start from Vora.

The economic cost of these delays, which start at less than an hour and often go well beyond that, is rarely calculated. For citizens, but also for tourists, every hour lost on the road represents fuel consumed, lost working time, more expensive transport services and lower productivity.

The Southeast held hostage by Elbasan traffic

The problem is not limited only to the coast. For tourists who choose to explore southeastern Albania, Elbasan continues to remain one of the country’s most critical traffic junctions.

Despite the investments made in the Tirana-Elbasan corridor, the flow of vehicles passing through the city during weekends, holidays and the tourist season often exceeds the capacity of the existing infrastructure. As a result, considerable congestion forms, which in certain cases lasts for several hours.

The impact of this phenomenon goes beyond the daily inconvenience for drivers. Elbasan represents the gateway to an important part of Albania’s tourism offering. Korça, Pogradec, Prespa National Park, the mountainous area of Gramsh and other parts of southeastern Albania depend on fast and predictable road access.

When traffic in Elbasan becomes unpredictable, this entire tourism space loses part of its competitive advantage.

A family planning a weekend in Korça or a foreign tourist wanting to visit Lake Ohrid calculates travel time as part of the overall holiday cost. When an itinerary that in theory should take two or three hours is extended because of traffic jams, the destination becomes less attractive.

Moreover, frequent congestion creates a paradox. Albania has invested significantly to bring the Southeast closer to Tirana and Durrës through improvements to the main road axes.

However, if the urban junctions where traffic is concentrated cannot handle the growing volume of vehicles, part of the benefits of these investments is lost. In other words, a single narrowing point is enough to reduce the efficiency of an entire transport corridor.

Elbasan is not just a local traffic problem. It represents a challenge to tourism development across southeastern Albania. The more interest grows in the area’s natural, cultural and gastronomic destinations, the more important it becomes to guarantee fast, safe and predictable access for domestic and foreign visitors.

The road to Shkodër takes 4 hours at best

Northern Albania has perhaps one of the most complete tourism mosaics, where in a small space you can find everything from steep mountains to wild rivers, lakes and villages where the landscape has still not been turned into a mass-market product.

The Alps, Valbona, Theth and Kelmend offer nature, while tower houses, besa, the epic tradition and customs offer heritage and authenticity.

This mix makes the North not simply beautiful, but an important stop in the plans of every visitor who comes to Albania. The North does not need to create a tourism identity; it simply needs the opportunity to show itself and offer what already exists.

In fact, the region’s potential could be maximized through better access. Traveling from Tirana to the most visited parts of the North, or vice versa, often requires four to five hours or more during the peak tourist season, while even outside the season, distances on certain segments will force you into a traffic “break” lasting from several minutes to an hour.

Despite this problem having been raised several times, an effective intervention to improve the connection between Shkodër and Lezhë has been lacking. Recently, the focus has been on coastal roads, which apparently are directly linked to the tourist village projects now springing up in the North as well, following the same model that was applied to the South of the country a few years earlier.

Two-thirds of tourists go to the North and Center, but traffic remains the main obstacle

Data on visitors in accommodation structures during June, July and August 2025, according to the Institute of Statistics, show that the North and Center regions together welcomed 1.31 million visitors, while the South recorded around 732 thousand visitors. With around 63% of the total tourist flow of these three regions, the North and Center carry the main weight of tourist movement during the summer season.

These figures highlight the importance of infrastructure and supporting capacities in the regions facing the largest visitor flows. In the South, part of the traffic-related problems have been addressed in recent years. It is hard to forget the long hours tourists used to spend along the coast in Vlorë, starting from Orikum and ending only after leaving the city.

This situation ended through several simultaneous interventions, first of all the commissioning of the route that passes through the Vjosa Valley toward the South, avoiding passage through the city of Vlorë and several other areas.

This provided relief for those wanting to head to Borsh, Qeparo, Saranda or Ksamil. At the same time, the Vlorë Bypass and interventions in the Radhima area have created additional alternatives for managing traffic during the tourist season.

Another easing factor is the Llogara tunnel and the intervention on the new Palasë-Dhërmi road, which is expected to extend further south.

In contrast, in the North and Center regions, the situation appears more fragmented. Despite investments made in various road segments, traffic continues to be present on a considerable number of routes, especially during periods of high tourist load.

Delays in movement and overload on several main axes remain a repeated refrain of the summer season. If the government wants sustainable tourism development in the country, investments in the North and the Center, though delayed, must be carried out more efficiently to avoid a repeat of traffic every summer season.

The North and the Center have a high number of visitors that requires long-term infrastructure and mobility solutions. As the tourist flow continues to grow, the capacity of road networks to meet demand remains an important factor in the normal functioning of tourist destinations in these regions.

The challenge is no longer attracting tourists, but improving their experience

Albania has invested year after year in the main road corridors over the last two decades. A series of interventions have improved intercity connections, even though the rapid growth in the number of vehicles and in tourist flows has in many cases exceeded the capacities originally designed.

Some of these interventions need to be followed by others, mainly bypasses, as is happening with Tirana and Elbasan, to avoid heavy traffic and to eliminate the way traffic from secondary roads “invades” the main ones.

In the long term, the solution does not lie only in building more lanes. International institutions assisting the country with various projects, both in infrastructure and tourism, underline that the need is for an integrated approach.

This includes functional public transport, multimodal hubs, intelligent traffic management and better coordination of public works.

Major infrastructure interventions are essential, but the way they are planned and implemented during the tourist season is just as important as the investment itself.

Albania’s challenge is no longer to attract tourists. That is already happening. The challenge is to enable them to move more efficiently. A country may have beautiful beaches, competitive prices and well-known, authentic hospitality, but if visitors spend a considerable part of their holidays stuck in traffic, the competitive advantage begins to fade. In the context of the moment the country is going through today, infrastructure is not merely an engineering issue, but a decisive factor in development./ Monitor