Every August large parts of continental Europe switch off. Shops shutter and people spend extended time with friends and family. Entire countries essentially have a well-earned break.

This comes as no surprise and yet, as this mass vacation rolls around every year, I react in much the same way. I rage and huff and call out this particular arrangement as absurd, unworkable and totally unjust.

However, it is difficult not to admire a society that collectively decides a large part of summer deserves protecting. Furthermore, it raises an obvious question: why haven’t the UK, US and other nations got a grip on this August situation? How haven’t we, on our productive patches, come to some sort of group consensus on how to handle the month? Could we not simply agree that it would be better if we all took the month off? 

Economically, I haven’t thought this through. I assume that there would initially be some sort of economic chaos. Industries combusting and such in the first few years. But, eventually, recovery? Lessons learned for the next summer? A slightly more honest relationship with work perhaps? 

But forget all that: just imagine the fun to be had if an entire month was dedicated to downtime. Oh, the places we’d go. Surely this would be a good thing? Some offices – usually the sort with little work being done in – have launched “Summer Fridays”, where workers are granted an early finish somewhere around 15.00 or earlier if they’re lucky. “Days Off for Weeks on End” has more of a ring to it, though.

Over the channel, France backs its summers with law as well as custom. Since 2017, the droit à la déconnexion has required French companies above a certain size to negotiate formal policies on out-of-hours contact. The legislation essentially says, “Your time outside of work is not the company’s property – relax.”

But none of this is really about law or policy anyway – it’s about trust. It’s about whether a country trusts its own citizens to behave accordingly, to not take the piss. France and Italy decided that rest is vital, something to be protected. The UK and the US still treat rest as something that’s a bit embarrassing.  

For all our admiration of European culture, neighbourhood squares, cafés and long lunches, we rarely consider the elements that make those relaxed things possible. They begin with a shared acceptance that there is more to a successful society than perpetual availability.
Of course, not every business could close, nor should they. But perhaps the rest of us could become a little more comfortable with the idea that the world won’t stop simply because we spend August out of the office.

If the door does open again to a better relationship with Europe, I’d like the UK to take more from it than a trade deal. Can we come to some sort of August Agreement?

Emily Bryce-Perkins is a London-based writer and Monocle contributor. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.
 
Further reading:
– History repeats itself, why not holidays? The case for taking a trip down memory lane

– Nine boats to buoy your summer months as temperatures hit the high Cs

– Embark on a grand tour of European retail with Monocle this summer

The curtains at the Shanghai Grand Opera House will finally rise on 17 October. A decade in the making, the new world-class cultural destination in the Chinese metropolis will kick things off with a packed season featuring 82 performances across 47 productions. 

Designed by Oslo-founded architecture practice Snøhetta in close collaboration with the East China Architectural Design and Research Institute, the sprawling 146,786 sq m complex will be more than a performing-arts venue. The team has imagined it as an all-day public space that offers unbeatable views of the city and Huangpu river. “We’ve always believed that buildings should be bigger than themselves,” says Richard Wood, Snøhetta’s managing director for Asia. “The Shanghai Grand Opera House is almost like a civic square – one that we hope will be owned and loved by the people.”

The centrepiece is a helical roof that echoes the form of a bamboo fan. Inspired by its unfolding movement, the roof expands in one continuous gesture down a radiating staircase, eventually leading into an underground metro station. “The roof not only links the performance hall to the exterior but also connects the ground to the sky and the building to the park and water,” says Snøhetta’s studio director for China, Cheng Gong.

Contrasting the simplicity of the sweeping roof is a stack of sculptural red volumes at the entrance, alluding to the drama that will ensue on stage. Besides three state-of-the-art performance halls of varying sizes, Snøhetta has made room for a full production facility. “At other theatres, production is done off-site but here everything – from the set design to the costumes and props – can be produced in the same building in one seamless flow,” says Gong. 

While back-of-house spaces are traditionally sealed off from the public, Snøhetta has intentionally uncovered parts of the production facility to the street, giving passers-by a glimpse of how the show comes together. “There’s been a global shift in cultural architecture where buildings [have opened up] to the people, and we like to think that we have played an active role in shaping that,” says Wood. “There’s a generosity in how we’ve designed the Shanghai Grand Opera House.” As construction enters its final phase, Wood is keen to see if Snøhetta’s vision will take shape as planned. “When I meet a married couple in 10 years’ time and they tell me that they met on the upper roof, that would be the highest success,” he says.

Three more up-coming cultural openings in Asia

Decentral, Bangkok
April 2027

Established by Thai real-estate conglomerate Central Group, Decentral Bangkok is a forthcoming non-profit art centre situated across a former denim factory, an office building and a traditional Thai-style house in the buzzing Watthana district. Taking an adaptive-reuse approach, Hong Kong-based practice Beau Architects has conceived a tropical garden to connect the spaces into one creative compound complete with shops and a café. Decorating the walls will be commissioned works by Thai contemporary artists. Decentral’s second outpost in Chiang Mai is also in the works. 

Róng Museum of Art, Shenzhen
June 2027

Shenzhen, known as China’s Silicon Valley, is making serious moves on the culture front. Following closely behind the Zaha Hadid Architects-designed Shenzhen Science & Technology Museum is the Róng Museum of Art, a private institution funded by Tencent co-founder, Pony Ma. No expense has been spared: the sprawling 4,500 sq m building is designed by acclaimed architecture firm Büro Ole Scheeren while the museum’s founding director Pi Li, previously the head of art at Hong Kong’s Tai Kwun Contemporary, is assembling a blockbuster opening exhibition focused on the visual culture of the 20th and 21st centuries. The Róng Museum of Art is part of an ambitious mixed-use property development, Houhai Hybrid Campus, which includes Upper House’s new Shenzhen outpost. 

Kontempo Center for Contemporary Art, Manila 
No date set yet

The Ayala Foundation, the non-profit arm of Filipino conglomerate Ayala Corporation, is behind one of the Philippines’ highly anticipated cultural projects: Kontempo Center for Contemporary Art. LA-based Thai architect Kulapat Yantrasast – known for designing Dib Bangkok – has hatched a building within the 2.5-hectare site that blurs the boundaries between inside and out, while Reuben Keehan, Queensland Art Gallery’s former curator of contemporary Asian art, has taken on the role of artistic director. Instead of building a large permanent collection, the museum will reportedly focus on “exhibitions, commissions, research and public programming”. 

Subscribers can flip through the paper and supplement below.

---

“What are you seeing in this place?” It was a fair question from my Australian family, who I had dragged to Gibellina Nuova, a small town in the centre of Sicily. It was a baking hot summer day and we were staring at the empty sistema delle piazze – built to the design of architects Franco Purini and Laura Thermes in 1990. Constructed from scratch between 1970 and 1990, the conurbation was intended to house some 100,000 people displaced by an earthquake that devastated the Belice Valley area.

Despite its relative newness, the town appeared lifeless when we rolled through. But so are most places at 14.00 at this time of year in Sicily. Still, it was hard to imagine it ever being described as vibrant – maybe if the local football team won the league, you could picture a procession around the piazze. The issue, from my rudimentary initial assessment, is its scale. The town has a population of about 4,000 but was created with the infrastructure and dimensions of one packed with 20,000 people. Slow initial construction and a subsequent lack of jobs meant that its vast plazas, enormous civic buildings and wide streets never filled up.

So, why visit? For a start, the buildings, despite their scale, are remarkable works of art. The mayor at the time of the earthquake, Ludovico Corrao, commissioned a murderers’ row of post-modern Italian architectural talent. The result is a bizarre mix of buildings defined by surreal and classical architectural details, with highlights including the orb-like Chiesa Madre church by Ludovico Quaroni and Luisa Anversa from 1985, a curving glass-and-metal theatre by Pietro Consagra (1976) and a pharmacy that looks like a rudimentary house tacked onto boxy concrete blockwork (again, by Purini and Thermes, 1980). Despite the wide, carbon-copy, car-friendly avenues complete with a mix of parking spaces and pedestrian boulevards, the residential side features villas with varied façades. There are Art Nouveau-inspired townhouses that look as though they were plucked from Brussels and Streamline Moderne structures that would be right at home in Los Angeles, all sitting side-by-side.

The result is an architectural mix that is significantly different from most towns on the island. About 50 to 60 per cent of all structures on Sicily were built before 1970, with urban environments either defined by centuries-old stone masonry or simple postwar concrete-block buildings. In contrast, there is no one shared style, no single hand guiding Gibellina Nuova – there was a mayor, a community and a host of architects convinced that ambitious expression matters more than consensus. It makes the architecture here a uniquely varied time capsule – one that reflects the aspirations of a Sicilian community able to express itself en masse. While it might not be a town that works in a conventional sense, what I see is a celebration of the sheer variety of human taste. That alone makes it worth a visit.

Postmodern perfection:
Read the full report on Gibellina Nuova’s development over the years here

In 1875 poet Julia Goddard wrote of the “golden summertime” – which was a place, in her telling, as much as a stretch of months, where “birds sing cheerily” and “listening breezes” share lovers’ secrets. For many parents, though, the phrase will trigger traumatic flashbacks of last year’s “Golden” summer, when kids across the globe insisted on playing the K-Pop Demon Hunters song of that name on loop for most of their waking hours. “We’re goin’ up, up, up, it’s our moment… Gonna be, gonna be golden…” It’s a repetitive lyric. Now, imagine hearing the whole thing 20 times in a row.

Children love repetition for good reason. Their growing brains are sensitive to patterns; in their earliest years, this is thought to help them acquire language through a process called “statistical learning”. When they’re a little older, they continue to try to decipher the world around them by identifying recurring sounds, sights, themes and ideas.

My son is nine now but he still takes a lot of comfort in doing the same thing over and over again. As soon as it’s summer, he starts pleading with us to be taken to the English coastal town of Whitstable, where we used to go every July or August until two years ago. Our trips would follow a set plan, which Kurt would strictly enforce. We’d get up early and run up a hill near the hotel where we always stayed, from which we could see sheep grazing in the distance. Then we’d return to eat breakfast when my partner was out of the shower and take a cab ride to the harbour, where we’d pick up some cockles, oysters and crab claws at the West Whelks shack. We’d eat on a specific part of the beach and amble westward to another stretch, prized because of its easy access to both a café and some public loos hidden beside a tennis court. The same itinerary, year after year. And it was perfect.

Like my son, I sometimes crave routine and long for this kind of repetition, especially when it comes to holiday escapes. It’s only natural, I suppose, no matter how old we are. When I was his age, it was a family ritual to spend summers on the island of Mitarai, near Hiroshima, where all of our uncles, aunts and cousins would gather for sashimi feasts and fireworks. The centuries-old house, once the site of my ancestors’ soy-sauce factory, was a constant in my childhood spent moving from one London rental house to another.

We all fantasise about the thrill of new experiences but some habits can be equally rewarding. Familiarity reduces mental fatigue, freeing us from the sort of instant decisions that we spend our working lives having to make, and there’s plenty of joy to be found in revisiting old haunts that are part of our personal history. It can teach us something too. “There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered,” wrote Nelson Mandela in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. And he was right. Maybe it’s not too late for me to book another trip to Whitstable this year – or even one to Mitarai, where I could revive an older family tradition.

Yo Zushi is Monocle’s chief sub editor. At time of press for Monocle’s summer newspaper, ‘Med, Mountains & More’, he had yet to sort out his family’s travel plans.

The road southeast from Aleppo bears the scars of Syria’s long civil war: bombed-out buildings, empty villages and a slow stream of cars passing checkpoints run by young men with rifles. But at some point on the descent towards the coast, the mood changes, the heat softens and the hills become greener, as the Mediterranean begins to announce itself. Military patrols are replaced by roadside stalls selling inflatable rubber rings and garish Lilos.

Latakia, Syria’s main port, was a political power base for Bashar al-Assad and his Alawite followers. Today its streets remain strewn with rubble but there’s also a corniche where women in sleeveless tops and summer dresses amble with their children as they head towards the sea. This is a place that’s very much in transition. Monocle passes a mansion, now occupied by the current government’s soldiers, with an Assad-era Hawk of Quraish emblem hanging on its gate. The money in people’s pockets still bears the image of the leader who fled to Russia in late 2024.

Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, was appointed president in January 2025, having moved with startling speed from insurgency to state power. His government is now trying to project an image of order, institutional discipline and pragmatism. Syrians and foreign observers alike are watching for signs that this new authority can accommodate a country as diverse, exhausted and suspicious as this one. But on our visit, Monocle doesn’t find a city in fear; rather, it’s a city in swimwear. By the sea, locals gather around plastic tables smoking, ordering rounds of drinks and – in a sense – daring the rest of the country to catch up with them. Women wear bikinis, Lebanese pop singers perform until the early hours and young Syrians drink alcohol in bars, in full view of a police station.

The official answer for how this all works lies in a very Syrian compromise. In June 2025 the tourism ministry issued rules requiring women to wear burkinis or other modest swimwear at public beaches and pools. Western-style ones, however, are permitted at private resorts and luxury hotels. In Latakia, the rules visibly differ from one beach to the next, even when they’re side by side. At the public beach, families arrive with plastic tubs of food, bags of bread and flasks of tea. Women huddle in groups underneath umbrellas, many of them covered in loose clothing and headscarves, while men wade into the sea in below-the-knee shorts.

“It’s very beautiful,” one woman tells Monocle, drawing deeply on her shisha. “It’s mainly Arabs who come here, not really Europeans. We hope that tourism keeps growing, especially from outside.” Around her is a home-cooked feast for a wedding party; the sand is strewn with rubbish bags, as children weave between deckchairs. This is one side of Latakia: affordable, conservative, sociable and good humoured. Right next to this, on the aspirationally named Côte d’Azur Road, is another. We arrive on Hola beach club’s opening day to a soundtrack of Arabic club hits and the din of a pool party. More than 300 people have turned up for the first day. It’s polished but not precious – an “affordable fancy beach club”, as its owner, Manaf Kaddour, puts it while showing us around the spa, shops, beauty salon, gym and rooftop nightclub.

“Since the liberation of Syria, many local and international investors have been planning to enter the Syrian tourism market,” says Kaddour. “The faster you enter, the greater the results.” What surprises him most is not demand but the lack of obstruction to his Westernised plans. The old bureaucracy has not disappeared, he says, and banking still needs reform, but there are “no more worries about bribes or internal interference in your business. Latakia is a virgin market.”

The entrance fee for private beach clubs of this kind is about €4 for children and €9 for adults, many of whom travel here from Damascus, Aleppo and Idlib. Abdul Wahed Daboul – the general manager of Afamia Hotel Resort, formerly part of the Rotana group – feels that he’s in the right place at the right time. “Latakia is completely different to the rest of Syria,” he tells Monocle. “Here, people are free and open-minded. This is where they come to enjoy the beach, have a drink and not worry.” On his desk is a picture of him with Al-Sharaa.

Not worrying is easier said than done, though, and Latakia isn’t entirely carefree. The tourism police, created by the new government, is part of an ongoing negotiation. Though they’re not an ominous presence on our visit, officers in deep-blue uniforms patrol beaches and tourist sites. Their role is slightly unclear: they’re not a morality police and are meant to offer security for people and businesses. According to its chief, Osama Marandi, the force in Latakia numbers 225 officers, including 50 women. “Welcome to the new Syria,” he says, with practised warmth.

Female officer Rama Ghanem was once a schoolteacher but jumped at the chance to join the tourism police to help her country and home city grow. “Old Syria was beautiful but now it’s changing for the better. There used to be no rule; now there is. This is our Syria, the people’s Syria. Before it was not.”

The laws are mostly clear. As well as new regulations promoting modesty and banning alcohol on public beaches, there are restrictions on groups of men in some areas – an attempt to keep beaches family-friendly and reduce harassment. “We don’t have a problem with bikinis,” says the tourism police chief. Ghanem quickly clarifies. “They’re allowed and we welcome it, as does the government – just not in public spaces,” she says. Though some things remain in flux, the direction of travel is encouraging, says Ghanem. “People from Aleppo and Idlib wouldn’t come here because of the previous regime,” she says. “Now they can visit all of the historic places. This is freedom.”

Caretaker Ilyas Karkhour guides us through the Virgin Mary Armenian Church, an 820-year-old stone sanctuary tucked into a side street in the city centre. Latakia’s centre is full of cultural treasures. There are churches beside mosques; shopkeepers who slip between Arabic and Armenian; Alawites, Sunnis and Christians living side by side. Back on the beach, the question of cosmopolitanism comes up again. “The mix of cultures and religions has been the essence of Syria from the beginning,” says Caroline Chrakiam, as we disturb her from her siesta on Blue Beach. “For now, we are waiting and seeing.”

“Wait and see” might as well be the coast’s unofficial slogan. Chrakiam says that there’s hope and freedom but warns against confusing either with certainty. A friend on the sunlounger next to her who has returned to Latakia from the UAE says that the Gulf was “our safe haven during the conflict – our shield”. But here, her family still worries when she goes to the beach and remembers the curfews and anxiety of a few short years ago. “There is still a little bit of fear,” says another Latakian called Kanz, who chooses not to share his surname. “We need time to fully trust these new guys and for them to fully accept who we are.”

On America Street, a predominantly Christian area, the bars begin to fill after the sun sets. At Abu Ghassan Pub, there’s football on. High tables are tightly packed and loud conversations compete with the match commentary. At one point, the bar goes dark: a power cut. Nobody flinches. Karim Morcos, a Latakia resident, shrugs and says that temporary shutdowns are less frequent than they were before, when the electricity sometimes stayed off for hours.

As we leave the hubbub of the pub, we spot a red cap on a shelf. The slogan reads: “Make Syria Great Again”. It’s a joke, of course, but perhaps also a little prayer.

Tourism in Syria

During Donald Trump’s Gulf visit in 2025, the US announced its decision to lift sanctions on Syria. This helped to open up a path to recovery and attracting capital. Last year, Syria signed tourism investment contracts worth about €1.3bn, for projects including hotels, resorts, entertainment and the rehabilitation of historic areas. Many in Lakatia hope that this will mean the arrival of Gulf-backed hotels, renovated resorts, better roads, cleaner beaches and new visitors arriving who can see Syria less as a warzone than a summer destination.

Latakia: Key information

Credit cards generally aren’t accepted so carry cash (both US dollars and Syrian pounds). Tourist visas can be bought on arrival (€130 for UK and European passport holders, €175 for Americans and about €40 for most other countries, such as Turkey and the Gulf states). Aleppo International Airport is the closest hub to Latakia; taxis take two-and-a-half hours and should cost no more than €90. Blue Beach resort has the best stretch of sand but gets busy at weekends. Afamia Hotel Resort’s accommodation is safe, clean and comfortable but perhaps not to the five-star standard that its promotional literature suggests. Visit Souq al-Safan and hidden gems such as X Public House and Radio Latakia. The corniche is bustling and is home to busy markets throughout the week. Latakians head to the beach on Fridays, meaning that most places are shut throughout the day. Away from the seafront, historical Ottoman sites include Ugarit, an ancient archaeological site dating back to 6,000 BCE. There’s also Qalaat Sahyun, a Unesco-listed medieval fortress, and The National Museum.

---

---

It’s 07.00. I’m already up, so I step onto the balcony to take in the view, just as guests have done since the mid-1960s. Below me, the pool is tranquil, towels are being put out on the loungers and a couple of guests are already on the terrace for coffee and breakfast. Beyond the pine trees gently twisted by a lifetime of sea breezes is the Mediterranean. The bay is punctuated by boats, their sails down, still asleep like their owners.

This is Punta Negra, a rocky outcrop of land where, in 1966, the Blanes family opened a modern hotel designed by Spanish architect Felipe Sánchez-Cuenca Martínez. They couldn’t have found a better spot. While the original (and heritage-listed) hotel buildings still dominate the headland, they have been joined by a series of softly rendered casas, six world-class restaurants and a vast spa that together mark Mandarin Oriental’s entry into the Mallorcan market – just at a moment when the island’s hospitality scene is seeing a decisive shift to high-luxury accommodation.

Raul Guerra, a Mandarin Oriental veteran, is the man tasked with getting this resort up and running. With his whip of patrician hair and easy confidence, it’s clear that the director of marketing and commerce has the brand’s DNA flowing in his veins. I ask him why the Hong Kong-headquartered company wanted an outpost here. “Our resort business has been growing over the past seven or eight years and, in Europe, we are doing very well in places like Bodrum and Costa Navarino,” he says. “But we wanted to be here. We already have city hotels in Madrid and Barcelona. We were looking at projects in Marbella, Ibiza and Seville but Mallorca came up first. It’s perfect timing.”

That perfect timing is, in part, down to a new cohort of visitors being drawn to the island, thanks to two long-haul flights – a United Airlines one from Newark and, just launched this summer, an Etihad connection from Abu Dhabi. Americans, Emiratis, Saudis, Mexicans and Brazilians are happy to spend more than European guests (another hotelier tells me that the flights have allowed him to double his prices). Catering to this client base that often travels with staff and family in tow meant subtly changing how the rooms were designed. The expanded resort now has 131 rooms, with 26 suites, including a series of casitas. “And 80 per cent of the inventory has interconnecting doors,” says Guerra of this simple update that gives Mandarin Oriental a market advantage.

But there are also other factors working in its favour. Despite feeling pleasantly far from the realities of life, the resort – owned by Blasson Property, which has reportedly spent €200m on the project – is just 20 minutes from the airport and 15 minutes from Palma. Not only is this convenient for guests but it also means that the hotel can attract diners from nearby villas and the capital – important when you have six restaurants to fill. Guerra describes Mandarin Oriental as having an “open concept” and this extends to the spa and its glorious pool, which are also available to non-hotel guests.

But back to that restaurant mix because it demonstrates the hospitality brand’s ability to pull in peerless players. As Monocle goes to press, four of the six are up and running and these are Thalos, a Greek pool-club restaurant, Sobretaula for Spanish tapas and cocktails, Leppoc for a Mediterranean menu and steakhouse Leña. Next will be an outpost from chef Nobu Matsuhisa (the first of his Matsuhisa line of restaurants in Spain) and Jacinta, a Mexican affair by DZO Hospitality, a Miami-based group. The trick for the resort will be to find the sweet spot between being an open concept and offering discretion and privacy to clients who don’t want to spend time around a lot of other people. Luckily, the scale of the resort helps.

There are other good decisions that bind the Punta Negra property, make it feel of place and elevate the experience. The planting that weaves across the property is fluid, colourful and alive with butterflies dropping anchor on its blossoms. The giant cacti here are architectural and dramatic. The interior design by French designer Laura Gonzalez, in collaboration with BG Studio, also feels free, spirited and perfect for Mallorca. And then there’s the art.

Paloma Fernández-Iriondo has curated the latter in all of the rooms and public spaces, and she has done an amazing job. She began her career at Sotheby’s in Madrid, rising to become the head of the old masters department in Spain, then spent years helping industrialist Juan Miguel Villar Mir to create one of Spain’s greatest art collections, before launching a business to assist hotels in collecting and showing art. At Punta Negra, she wanted to work with artists based or born in Spain, as well as those whose stories reflect Mallorca’s history as a cultural crossroads. “Everything needs to fit with the interior but each piece needs to have merit,” she says of her role. “No piece should be better than another. It has to make a statement but be relaxed and of the island.”

To meet this brief, she crisscrossed Mallorca and sought out talent that didn’t have gallery representation – the kind of thing that only a person with an extraordinary eye can achieve. Then she started to commission unique pieces, such as the tiled “Balearic constellations” in the lobby by Fran Aniorte, an artist living between Istanbul and Barcelona, and the paintings by Vera Edwards in Casa Alma – part of the original hotel. A piece of history serendipitously floated to the surface when Edwards pointed out that her grandmother had made a ceramic mural for the hotel in the 1960s. Now that work, depicting the conquest of Mallorca by James I in 1229, sits just metres from one by Edwards. Here, you see a real commitment to quality but also a sense of creativity. Perhaps that’s what modern luxury is about – an elevated sense of place.

After taking in the view from my room, I head out past the pool, taking a fresh towel, and walk down the steps to one of two tiny public beaches beside the property. I dive into the silent waters and swim out, before turning back to look at the handsome hotel on the rocks. In the orange blush of the morning, it looks glorious.
mandarinoriental.com

Victory lap

The Mandarin Oriental Punta Negra’s lead architect is Estudio Lamela, which worked on the project in collaboration with HKS Architects and local studios including Palmer Blach Arquitectos. The practice was founded in 1954 by Antonio Lamela, known for his work on hotels, apartment buildings and landmark projects including Madrid’s Torres Colón. For the studio, the Punta Negra project marks a return to a piece of coastline that its founder knew well – he designed residential projects such as Edificio Zodiac in Illetes and Son Matías in Palma Nova.

---

---

Further reading:
Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group CEO Laurent Kleitman on the future of luxury hospitality, the hotel group’s growth and ‘The White Lotus’ effect

Where to go and who to know when making yourself at home in Mallorca 

Edi Rama doesn’t seem thrilled when Monocle visits his office but that could have something to do with the protests outside his window in central Tirana. The lack of bonhomie contrasts with the long-serving Albanian prime minister’s image as the statesman-slash-showman of the Western Balkans. Rama is renowned for his irreverence at international summits: one minute serenading his Italian counterpart, Giorgia Meloni; the next, cracking jokes with Emmanuel Macron about Donald Trump’s propensity for mixing up Albania with Armenia. Media profiles gush about the artworks that decorate his office and his tendency to doodle. They marvel at how close he has brought Albania to EU membership during his 13 years in office, transforming Tirana’s skyline and presiding over a tourism boom.

Those journalists evidently didn’t encounter the version of Rama that we see. Monocle’s photographer gets short shrift when he asks the prime minister to doodle as he poses, then earns another ticking off when he changes position during the interview. A question about compromising with the protesters is swatted aside. “Why do I have to reach an accommodation?” he says. “They have the right to protest. It’s a great achievement for this country to have peaceful protests. But we’ve been elected with a landslide and have a clear vision. We have a contract with the majority of Albanians. A few thousand people insisting that we should go are good for the democratic health of the country but they aren’t in a position to impose anything.”

But, in this case, they’re in a position to gain plenty of international attention, largely because of the Trump factor. The US president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is behind proposals for two resort projects on the Albanian coast – at Zvernec, near the city of Vlora, and on the island of Sazan. The government has granted Kushner “strategic investor” status, allowing him to develop luxury accommodation in an area that’s supposed to be under environmental protection. Those plans have stirred up local concerns since they went public two years ago. Then, in May, the protests gained traction when security guards at one of the sites assaulted a local man as police stood by. The video of the incident went viral and triggered an outpouring of anger that spread from the coast to the capital.

Rama is exasperated by this turn of events. He characterises Kushner as an investor who is “respectful to our country” and wants to do “everything by the book”. He also describes the assault on the protester as an “unacceptable episode”, for which officials are already being held to account. Above all, he rejects the protesters’ main complaint – that Albanian land is being sold to wealthy foreigners, with little benefit to the locals in what remains one of Europe’s poorest countries.

Tourism accounts for about a quarter of Albania’s GDP but the prime minister insists that the country needs to move beyond the current model. “Mass tourism has been an incredible force to spread the word about this country but it’s not sustainable for nature, the air, the water,” he says. “The stress that it brings to the country isn’t worth it. I’m not saying that we have to stop but need balance. We need high-end: fewer tourists but more money.”

Looking at the Albanian Riviera, Rama’s point seems plausible. A busy single carriageway separates the beach, with rows of parasols and sunbeds belonging to the hotels and holiday apartments opposite. Some of them have only been built recently, in response to growing tourist numbers after the pandemic. Others are still under construction. Even before the start of peak tourism season, it’s starting to feel uncomfortably busy.

In the bar of the Regina Palm Resort is Vasil Bedinaj. His Regina Group owns four hotels in and around Vlora and he wants to expand. But he’s pondering the wisdom of doing so if Albanian tourism doesn’t evolve. He believes that Kushner’s projects might provide an example for others to follow. “We don’t have the experience for this kind of business yet and, to learn, you have to have the best ones around you,” he says. “And you have to have brands. They’ll bring professional workers. And when they do, I can learn from them.”

Others are less optimistic. In Galeria e Bregdetit, an exhibition by artist Driton Selmani explores Albania’s relationship with tourism through a series of works involving everything from mosaics to bird droppings. Founder and curator Elian Stefa describes this as “a cheeky way of reflecting on these transformations that are happening here”. He has run the gallery since 2018 and isn’t convinced that bigmoney developments will bring meaningful benefits to locals. “The question is about access and accountability. Who will be able to enjoy them and profit from them?”

Vlora resident Baki Goxhaj wants the stretch of coast around the Narta lagoon to remain a sanctuary for flamingos and other birds. He has been protesting in both Vlora and Tirana. “Public beaches are protected by law and can’t be privatised but they basically fenced off 7km to make a private beach,” he says. “We also have the protected areas law. They amended it to allow only luxury investments. So this is only for special people.”

Similar sentiments are common in Tirana, where people have seen luxury tower blocks sprouting across the city but haven’t felt the benefits. Keit Zaloshnja is an executive assistant at Vila 31, an artists’ residence where dictator Enver Hoxha once lived in the kind of luxury that would have boggled the minds of Albanian citizens during his rule. She sees a different kind of wealth gap emerging. “Investors make out that Albania is a hidden gem, so they want to make it beautiful and use all the resources,” she says. “That seems a bit colonial. There needs to be more transparency and dialogue with the public.”

The protesters outside the prime minister’s office aren’t just calling for the Zvernec project to be scrapped. They also shout about the need to improve schools, hospitals and living standards. “I’m taking notes,” says Rama. “Your enemies can tell you things that are more useful than what your friends tell you.” With that, he instructs Monocle’s photographer to “get out” and turns to the doodle-festooned papers on his desk. Rama has claimed that sketching helps him to focus. This long, hot summer shows no sign of cooling. He might need to order some extra pens.

---

---

Dive into our new summer newspaper, Med, Mountains & More. We sit down with Albanian prime minister Edi Rama, invite you to settle in for a drama-packed beach read by author Edward Chisholm and test your knowledge with a selection of puzzles.

Plus: Don’t miss our glossy 50-page supplement, featuring our top-five stays from Malta to Merano, breezy menswear on Spain’s Costa Brava and much more.

Order your copy today.

Subscribers will receive the newspaper as part of their regular package.