Apartments and guesthouses cannot accommodate tourists unless they are registered as businesses. With this rule, the government intends to formalize the tourism sector. The changes in the tourism law of 2015 bring changes, which aim to solve the informality, since the high number of tourists who register at the entrance of the Albanian borders does not coincide with the declarations issued by the accommodation structures.
For this reason, the government will create a new register, part of which will be simple private rooms, modern apartments, traditional houses, guesthouses and villas that will be used for tourism purposes. With the legal changes, now every entrepreneur who owns an accommodation facility must register with the National Business Center and then request a certificate from the Ministry of Tourism.
After this step, he must perform the electronic registration of customers with data on the number of visitors, nights of stay, citizenship, residence, gender and age. The draft law also provides for fines, when these businesses do not adhere to the new rules, from 20,000 to 400,000 ALL. On the other hand, the draft increases the possibilities to finance projects in the field of tourism, which will be partially financed from the state budget.
