The sotry of hospitality in Theth

Dec 16, 2014 | Blogs from Albanian Alps

The history of Thethi as a touristic destination starts from the 1890^th from some groups organized by the Francescan ordin, which priests use to visit Thethi within their pastoral mission. Who use to visit Thethi once get a huge impression of its beauty. Year by year the word got spread and visitors start to come in a bigger flux. In 1905 Edit’h Durham describe the village as the most beautiful panoramic she have ever seen till that moment and got impressed from the hospitality of the local people, which accompanied her till next village Vuthaj, in Montenegro.

At this time the first tourists start coming in Thethi as adventurer tourists, which got accommodated near the village Church. Year by year the number of tourists got bigger, mostly from the city of Shkodra, that use to come in Thethi for its health cure.

At this moment start the tourist development in Thethi, where a lot of Thethi’s families straight friendship with Shkodra city families, mostly from Gjecaj and Okol quorters which give the availability of their rooms for guests from the city. First houses was the Vat Nika’s and Dede Ndrethi’s ones in Gjecaj and Sadri Luka’s one in Okol. This relationship was broken by the Communist regime that didn’t allow anymore the free choice for traveling or tourism.

During the communist regime tourism got organized from the state and for this in Thethi got constructed a residencial house for the families of the high class of that time which use to come in Thethi previously organized by the state/government. During that time the local people use to work in agriculture and those ones who use to work at this residence was previously chosen by the government to have a ‘clear biography’.

After 90’tis the camp guesthouse was closed and tourists forgot Thethi for a while! First signs of revitalization of Thethi tourism was in 1996 under the promotion of a organization from Netherland. This new start was interrupted again in 1997 when the civil war started in Albania and a chaos situation was created. This situation of the tourism in Thethi goes on til 2001, time when Antonia Young implemented a project tituled “Balkan Peace Park” that laced Thethi, Valbona, Plave and Guci and till Rugove in Kossovo. This project was a push for the restart of the tourism in Theth. Around the year 2005 the Cooperation and Development Office of the German Embassy (GIZ) implemented a project for the restructuration of some houses in the village to be adapted as guesthouses to host tourists. In this way started a beautiful road to the continuous development of the village of Theth as a touristic destination.

From 2005 till now, in a period of ten years now, with the restructuration of the guesthouses and the infrastructures improvement there is a big change of the area. Now days in Thethi there are more than 400 beds capacity in the three village areas: Kaprre, Nderlysa and Thethi, which is the most preferred destination. In Thethi there are more than 20 guesthouses, most of them concentrated in the Thethi center. Actually, there are no hotels of a high standard but just traditional houses adapted as guesthouses for tourists, with the maximum capacity of 5 to 10 rooms each. Each one of them is investing year by year to improve its comfort and facilities.