As soon as it was Europe’s North Korea, a cloistered communist dictatorship. However now Albania lures hundreds of thousands of vacationers a 12 months, with a rising portion coming seeking a radiant smile, luscious lips or higher breasts.
“I don’t like to talk about medical tourism. It’s a bit scary,” mentioned Dritan Gremi, who heads a dental clinic within the capital Tirana.
“I prefer to talk about happiness tourism, which makes people happy.”
Gremi mentioned his clinic provides “high-quality care with equipment that is guaranteed and certified” to European requirements at a fraction of the value.
He has Italian, French, Belgian and Swiss shoppers typically lured with bundle offers that embrace journey and lodging prices.
With scandals about shoddy work and disfigured shoppers taking a number of the shine off medical tourism elsewhere, Albanian well being authorities say they insist on top quality care.
Prosecutors carried out checks on 30 beauty clinics this month in search of contraband merchandise and Botox, which is banned in Albania.
Smile sale
Stephane Pealat’s journey to Albania began with the hopes for a brand new, inexpensive smile.
He and his brother, who’re from Valence within the south of France, have lengthy suffered from dental issues, together with tooth loss that pushed him to hunt a posh dental implant process.
“In France we had an initial estimate which was very, very expensive. Then we started looking on the internet — Bulgaria, Turkey, Albania, Spain,” Pealat advised AFP.
He realized concerning the Gremi clinic throughout a session session in Lyon with Albanian dentists.
After an preliminary go to in August to tour the amenities in Tirana, Pealat and his brother returned within the autumn.
In line with Pealat, the dental implant operation he opted for value roughly 50,000 euros ($54,000) in France, in comparison with simply 13,500 euros in Albania.
It was no small quantity for Pealat.
“It is important to have a beautiful smile,” he mentioned.
Nathalie Gangloff, who works as an occasion organiser at a nursing residence in Cognac in western France, additionally opted for an Albania clinic to deal with her dental points.
“My doctor in France told me about a TV documentary” about medical tourism in Albania, Gangloff advised AFP.
She paid underneath 15,000 euros to have her enamel executed in comparison with the 42,000 euros that she would have needed to spend in France.
After extractions and implants in February, she returned to Tirana in mid-September for her last work, joyful to have regained her smile.
“With my job, it’s important to have beautiful teeth and a good hairdo,” she advised AFP, saying she instantly modified her Fb profile image to point out off her new pearly whites.
Love and happiness
Low overheads and tax has helped Albanian clinics lure prospects with decrease costs.
The nation’s medical tourism sector is estimated to earn between 200 and 250 million euros a 12 months, with no less than 50,000 Italians visiting Tirana for remedy yearly.
Nonetheless, the procedures aren’t danger free.
The pinnacle of Albania’s nationwide medical doctors affiliation Fatmir Ibrahimaj mentioned each overseas and native sufferers shouldn’t depend on internet marketing alone for beauty procedures and may resulting from their due diligence earlier than present process remedy.
“A doctor is not a five-star or no-star hotel,” Ibrahimaj advised reporters.
For Anna Maria, an Italian from Milan, the “smile of the soul passes also through the lips”.
The psychologist in her 30s — who didn’t need to give her surname — visited Albania for dental veneers and a lip process with the hopes of bettering her smile.
“More and more foreign tourists are also getting cosmetic treatments to brighten up their smile,” mentioned Monika Fida, a dermatologist and college lecturer in Tirana.
Injections of hyaluronic acid into the lips are notably in style.
“Above all, they want to feel good, and have well-shaped lips as naturally as possible,” added Fida, who mentioned between 750 and 1,000 overseas sufferers go to her clinic yearly.
Vera Panaitov, a 60-year-old Italian chef from Verona, initially got here to have her enamel executed.
However as soon as in Tirana, she had opted for procedures on her breasts and waist.
“You have to be beautiful at any age and experience love and happiness at every moment,” she advised AFP, smiling from her hospital mattress, saying she felt “happy and rejuvenated”.
Christine Cincunegui, a French businesswoman, might quickly comply with her.
In Paris, she appeared set on going forward with a dental process in Albania after consulting practitioners visiting the French capital.
“Feeling more beautiful and having fun? What more do we want?” she advised AFP.
