Blerina Ago

Blerina Ago is the advisor of the Albanian Ministry of Tourism and Environment since November 2017.

Currently, she is selected from the prestigious Young Transatlantic Innovative Leaders Initiative (YTILI), a flagship program of the U.S. Department of State and is supported in its implementation by the German Marshall Fund , among 100 young European entrepreneurs. She is an Alumni of the Albanian School of Political Studies, part of the Council of Europe network and she attended the European Summer School, an initiative of the National Integration Council. 

Blerina Ago has founded the Albania Rafting Group and since has been actively involved in advocating and promoting tourism activities within international standards.

At the young age of 14 years old, she became the first girl to practice rafting in Albania. She is also known in Albania as a spokesperson and the organizer of many events for the preservation of the Albanian river’s ecosystem, canyons and mountains flora and fauna.

As part of the Albanian Rafting Federation Blerina, has received the "Act Now" award on her work in civic engagement in the field of tourism and white water ecosystem preservation by the Embassy of the United States in Tirana. She has been selected as a Success Story by USAID Albania for her entrepreneurial initiative and contribution in the development of adventure tourism in Albania and the "Sustainable Tourism Model" by the Ministry of Tourism. It is worth to mention that she is the winner of the Swiss Embassy's Award for Tourism Innovation.

Blerina has been speaker at the regional conference "AdventureNext_Balkans", Macedonia and a delegate at the Adventure Tourism World Summit, Alaska of the Adventure Travel Trade Association.

Furthermore, she has been named as one of the "100 women of the 100th years" by various Albanian medias (UNIQUE - Balkanweb, News24, etc) focusing on the profiles of the 100 most successful Albanian women of the century. Blerina has been working intensively to create and launch the Albanian Adventure Resort, a social enterprise focusing on Adventure Tourism development through more than 15 outdoor sports, training and local community engagement. She has recently signed an agreement with all adventure sports federations in Albania to standardize and certify guides that offer adventure sports as part of a tourism activity and has worked on the recent Albanian Tourism Law to enhance the legislation regarding adventure tourism practices.