Tirana as an Open Lab. A Pilot for an Integrated Research Tourism’s Vision in Pre/Post-Pandemic.

Abstract

The event we are facing at a global scale, the COVID-19 pandemic, can be considered a real death blow to the real markets, in general, as well as to a local heritage-based tourism market, in particular. The closing of both near and distant “borders”, due to the imposed social-spatial limitations - as an early answer to the pandemic - has hugely and mainly affected the micro, small and medium businesses’ fabric within their local contexts. This article aims to identify how and if an alternative tourism offer might take/give a kind of advantage of the urban features and cultural layers of Tirana, by positioning it as safe tourism in the current long wave of post-pandemic. Tirana is proposed as an experimental open lab. The adopted survey methodology was based on both traditional urban analyses, as well as on an e-survey aimed to catch the overall common inclination in the city's vocation for an unconventional tourism offer. The paper is mostly focused on the survey as the base material from which to get further information to be used in subsequent co-planning and co-designing phases.