The aim is to develop a profile of Albania’s hotels based on a critical analysis of the attitude of foreign tourists visiting the country COVID-19 negatively affected the Albanian tourism sector because 2,657,818 foreign citizens visited Albania in 2020, which is 41 49% less than in 2019 To investigate the potential of Albanian tourists, this study employs a quantitative analysis and a Regression Model The results demonstrate that the tourist is a rational decision-maker and our findings indicate that there are differences in expectations and perceptions among respondents These differences are not significantly correlated with the respondents’ gender, but in terms of education level, the differences are significant for empathy, where the respondents with a college degree have a higher level of expectations than respondents that have higher education Our findings highlight the practical implications of research for managers of hotels because they have to take into account that tourists are very sensitive to the level of understanding of their specific needs by hotel staff Recently, more than before pandemic COVID-19, the relationship between expectations and perceptions of tourists visiting Albania is strongly influenced by tangible elements of the touristic package © 2021 by the authors Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland
The potential of Albanian tourism sector