Sustainable Tourism as enhancer for Branding Gjirokastra S. JOJIC
Author: PhD. Sonia Jojic
Affiliation: POLIS University
Abstract
Creative Tourism and Tourism for All as enhancer of Cultural Tourism in achieving sustainable development of the region. As reviewed in the literature of branding cities and regions, cultural and natural heritage, the build environment, hallmark events, and famous personalities with the uniqueness of the place, are seen as potential tools in branding. However, in places and cities where the local economy, environment, and social development lacks in supporting the bases for creating a brand, sustainable tourism in this research is seen as an introductory tool in fostering furthermore the branded image of a city or region in Albania. Although sustainable tourism is a very wide subject affecting many areas of implementation, also based on the outcomes of the SWOT analysis and questionnaires, the research focused on Branding Gjirokastra focused on the Sustainable tourism categories of a) fostering Cultural Tourism through the use of Cultural Routes; b) Creative tourism; c) Accessible tourism for all. These categories of sustainable tourism are seen as part of the branding methodology that should be applied in cases like Gjirokastra which, differently from other destinations in Albania and the Western Balkans, points to a more selective tourism approach.
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