When the Western Balkans turn white!

Inspired by all the wonderful snow falling in the recent days in Pristina, I decided to write about the skiing places in the Western Balkans. Besides having a wonderful coastline for the summer holidays, the region has great potential to develop winter tourism, too.  After all, it is known as a mountainous region. Recently, I have read that there are about 2,000 ski resorts in the mountains in 66 countries around the world. Today there are about 125 million skiers in the world and about 15% of them travel abroad to ski. Many of them come from countries as the Netherlands (with 1 million skiers), the UK, Germany, and Belgium, who are increasingly heading towards resorts in Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia. They often choose these destinations because of high prices of the Western European ski resorts.  As they make their way to Eastern Europe, I believe that with more effort from our countries to promote skiing resorts, the skiers would make their way to the Western Balkans, too. The area has a high potential and if there would be more investment, it could be attractive destination for tourists. For this purpose, I did some research and have compiled a short list of skiing resort destinations in the Western Balkans to give an overview of the current state of skiing resorts and potential developments in the future. In Albania tourism has increased dramatically in recent years. Wonderful coastline, history, beautiful cities, natural beauties, and high mountains make this place space for all kinds of tourism. However, because of the weather conditions, Albania does not have a high number of skiing resorts. The only skiing runway present in the country is in the area of Korça. Nonetheless, the northern part of the country can be explored and offers perfect conditions to build a ski slope in the future. If Albania invests in winter tourism as well, it will help the country increase the revenues dramatically for a stronger economy.  

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is home to three beautiful skiing places: Jahorina, a place which hosted events in the 1984 Winter Olympics, including the Women’s Alpine Competitions; Rostovo, an ideal place for beginners in skiing and Bjelasnica, which is the largest ski resort in central BiH. The altitude change is almost 800 meters (2,625 feet), which creates a few steep slopes for the experienced and adrenaline junkies.

In Kosovo, Brezovica is undoubtedly the most well-known skiing place. Although the infrastructure is damaged and there has been a lack of investments for a long time, the ski resort in Brezovica still is the most beautiful and important ski destination for all tourists. In addition, for Kosovo, the winter tourism has begun to expand, with recent years marking the first steps and some other destinations include: Rugova, Prevalla, Brod, where great winter recreation centers were built along with skiing trails.

In Macedonia, two skiing destinations have marked the winter vacationing in this country. Popova Sapka and Mavrovo are the two most famous and frequented places for skiing.With average 135 days of snow, Popova Sapka is located in the northwestern part of the country in the beautiful Shar Mountains. Located in National Park Mavrovo, the ski center Mavrovo has an average snow cover of 70 cm, which makes possible good skiing and enjoyment of scenic mountain views.

Although Montenegro is primarily known for its beautiful coastline, it also has great mountain range, located in the northern part, which positions this country for a great winter tourism potential. Two main skiing resorts in Montenegro, are Žabljak, and Kolasin. They all are located at Durmitor National Park, which is well-known for its breathtaking views. Žabljak is one of the most famous ski centers in Montenegro. It is covered with snow 120 days a year with the highest point at 2,010 m above sea level and elevation of 700 m while Kolašin lies at an altitude of 950 m, in the central part of Montenegro.

Serbia also has great potential for ski tourism having two wonderful skiing resorts. The Kopaonik range is the largest ski resort in the country and Zlatibor, which besides skiing it also is a  place where you can visit museums, caves, waterfalls and other landmarks.

Even though not studied thoroughly, from this blog we can see that there are beautiful winter vacation places with great potential in this region and if invested more it might turn the region into the first destination for winter tourism. Unfortunately, the Western Balkans is often overlooked when looking for a vacation in the snow and to change this status quo the region must invest and promote its ski destinations on the international market.

Author: Migjen Krasniqi