Innovation in Tourism: “Attractor” Model as a Good Opportunity to Increase Economic Cooperation in the Balkans

Abstract

Innovation is a necessity in all fields and sectors, with the main purpose to create, maintain and improve the image of a company (in microeconomic terms), and a country (in macroeconomic terms). Competitiveness and innovation are now transformed into an inseparable binomial to achieve success. Up to 10 years ago, foreign visitors have questioned the image of Albania because of different reasons, such as slow economic development, a social structure that is not fully consolidated, public institutions that are not very conscious about the role they should play in the community, private companies often oriented towards short- and medium-term plans and benefits, and so forth. There is almost the same case with the image of Kosovo. On the other hand, Montenegro and Macedonia seem to always have had a positive image, which has been more stable but still incomparable to other countries, such as Italy, Greece (despite the recent crisis) and Turkey, with respect to tourism. Given that for countries like Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia tourism is among the core sectors contributing towards future economic growth, there is an open discussion on how to find ways for increasing the economic cooperation among those countries in the sector of tourism. The focus of this article is a deep analysis regarding the positive impact that can be generated from the implementation of the “Attractor based model” in the sector of tourism, as an innovative model that can improve economic cooperation and quality of tourism in the Balkans (Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro).

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2014.v3n4p119