Albania is the next big Mediterranean holiday destination, Tui boss reveals

Sign up to Simon Calder’s free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calder’s Travel email Get Simon Calder’s Travel email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Albania could be the next big Mediterranean destination, the boss of Europe’s biggest holiday company has said. I think the prospect is huge and I wouldn’t be surprised if we start a significant programme there.” Opening up: Tirana street scene, dominated by snow-capped mountains Mr Ebel revealed that 10 years ago, when he joined the executive board at Tui, he had raised the prospect of launching holidays to Albania. “We are definitely returning to Albania.” In December the nation’s tourism minister, Mirela Kumbaro, told The Independent: “We are aiming for high-end tourism in Albania.” The minister, whose brief also includes the environment, said she is “pushing for four- and five-star hotels with international brand names”. “We had the idle rich, vaguely feeling they ought to see what communism was about, we had the academics noting every word that was said and buying every publication in English, and we had the wild revolutionaries determined to find paradise in Albania and to impose it on Britain when they returned.” Another nation bordering the Mediterranean could also soon be welcoming British package holidaymakers.