When one hears the name of a particular country, you imagine
vacationing there.
Italy. (Mmmm, bella.) Greece. (Opa!) Albania.
Stumped? Visiting Fulbright Scholar Merita Dollma would
like to change your mind.
 |
TOURISM BOOST: Merita Dollma, a visiting
Fulbright
Scholar from Albania, is working with
EMU's Historic
Preservation and Geographic Information
Systems/Remote Sensing (GIS/RS) programs to
develop a model digital catolog of her country's
natural and cultural monuments. Dollma, a
geography
professor from the University of Tirana,
Albania,
hopes her work will boost tourism in her
country. |
"One of the priorities of Albanian development is tourism," said
Dollma, a geography professor from the University of Tiriana,
Albania. "Since Albania had been isolated from the world
for almost 50 years (during the Communist period), the
world knows very little of our natural and cultural heritage."
Dollma is working with professors in Eastern Michigan
University's Historic Preservation and Geographic Information
Systems/Remote Sensing (GIS/RS) programs (within EMU's
Department of Georgraphy and Geology) to develop a model
digital catalog of her country's natural and cultural monuments.
When she returns to Albania in March, she'll present the
model to the Albanian Ministry of Culture and Tourism and
the Ministry of the Environment as a tool to help the country
promote itself as a tourist destination.
Every monument of nature or culture will, eventually,
have its own file, complete with maps, photos, graphics
and information about the site's architectural, archeological
and ethnographic significance. It will give the country
not only a functional database, but also a digital archive.
Dollma is working on the digital model of the Albanian
heritage and she has taken a pilot region, Dibra
County, for which she is logging maps and
information about its two national parks, 99 natural water
and land monuments, and its many cultural heritage sites.
Dollma, author of the book, "Albanian Regions," also plans
to publish her findings in the Journal of Preservation,
Education and Research. In addition, she plans to create
an Albanian Heritage Web site — a detailed overview
with tourism in mind — after she returns home.
Despite being slightly smaller than the state of Maryland,
Albania has 13 national parks, Alps in the north, and 427
kilometers of coastline along the Adriatic and Ionian seas.
Italy sits across the Adriatic, and Greece is just south
of the border.
Albania has deep, deep history, ranging from ancient and
medieval castles to the blended influences of invading
Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Bulgarians, Serbs and Ottomans.
What Albania lacks is public relations.
It's not that the country gets a bad rap with Western
tourists. Generally, it gets no rap at all.
Americans know little more about the country than where
it sits on the globe — if they even know that. And,
Dollma has found, Albanians who've lived in the U.S. 10-15
years know only slightly more about the natural and cultural
treasures of their home country than Americans do.
Eastern Michigan's combined expertise in historic preservation
and GIS/RS made the University a natural choice for Dollma's
Fulbright studies, and she said her colleagues have been
very friendly, helpful and welcoming. Dollma's also been
pleasantly surprised by their level of interest in her
country.
Brad Ensor, an EMU sociology and anthropology professor,
hopes to take a class of his students to Gjirokastra,
a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) world heritage site in southern Albania. Known
as the "City of Stones" or the "Stone City," Gjirokastra's
architecture has changed little since its Ottoman days.
The streets are paved with stones and all of the buildings
— even the roofs — are made of stone, Dollma said.
"It is very hilly, mountainous; and the houses are
built one over each other. The architecture is very special," Dollma
said."There's a citadel in the center of the city
where you can see all the hills of the city."
Last October, Dollma gave a presentation on Albania
to students, faculty and visitors from the Detroit-area
Albanian community at Halle Library. She included posters
that highlight Albania's shoreline, mountains and historic
sites.
"They were shocked," she said. "Now, they are a talking
about organizing a tour in Albania. This is great. It means
I got them interested."
