Students' perceptions and attitudes toward sustainable tourism development in Albania

Abstract

Nowadays, tourism in Albania has been considered a new phenomenon. Its growth needs to be managed in order to provide a successful future of tourism and an increase of the potential contribution of tourism for the country's sustainable development. This requires tourism to be developed in a sustainable manner. This study focuses on the perceptions towards sustainable tourism development in Albania. The purpose of this study is to analyze students' perceptions towards tourism development in Albania in order to understand the nature of tourism impacts in the three dimensions of its development. To obtain necessary data, a structured questionnaire was delivered on-line to all students of the MA program on "Sustainable Tourism Management" at University of Shkodra "Luigj Gurakuqi". Liker-scale was used to measure the perceptions of the students on tourism development in Albania. The findings from descriptive data analysis provide evidence on the costs and benefits of current development of tourism and also provide students' suggestions on a sustainable future of tourism in this country. In general, tourism students' knowledge and perceptions towards sustainable tourism development in Albania have not been analyzed up to now. Through this study we hope to contribute to filling this gap, by offering the first empirical study that measures students' knowledge towards sustainable tourism development and their suggestions to promote it. Findings of this study are an important contribution for setting up the strategy of sustainable tourism development in Albania.