- Bangladesh 43-4 and facing innings defeat after S. Africa onslaught
- Snow forecast next week on Mt Fuji, at last
- Faker: eSports legend and South Korea 'national treasure'
- Bangladesh forced to follow on after five-star Rabada strikes
- Sho-time! Japan fans ecstatic as Ohtani becomes World Series champ
- 90 Rohingya left 'stranded' on Indonesia beach
- Asian stocks mostly down after weak Wall Street lead
- As US election rhetoric heats up, illegal border crossings fall
- Snooker legend Ronnie O'Sullivan granted residency in Hong Kong
- 'We'll survive': Ukrainians on front brace for hard winter
- Lips, teeth and breasts: Albania cashes in on medical tourism
- Bangladesh 137-8 at lunch, trail by 438, as five-star Rabada strikes
- Iannone to race at Malaysian MotoGP after four-year doping ban
- Russia stirs up anti-LGBTQ prejudice in Moldova 'information war'
- Super Typhoon Kong-rey makes landfall in Taiwan
- Germany to bury nuclear waste but toxic dispute unresolved
- All eyes on US TV networks for 'high stakes' election night
- Bank of Japan warns of 'high uncertainties' after election
- World Series MVP Freeman 'ecstatic' after Dodgers triumph
- Australian rising golf star loses sight in eye after freak accident
- Samsung Q3 operating profits soar to $6.6 bn, miss forecast
- Dodgers star Ohtani 'honored' by maiden World Series win
- Yankees manager says Dodgers defeat will 'sting forever'
- UK treads fine line on slavery legacy, while ruling out reparations
- German president visits Greek village gutted by Nazi forces
- Dodgers comeback stuns Yankees to seal World Series triumph
- Asian stocks uneven after shaky Wall Street lead
- Los Angeles Dodgers beat New York Yankees 7-6 to win World Series
- Papua New Guinea to boycott 'waste of time' UN climate summit
- China factory output expands for first time in six months
- Shells to surfboards: how wildlife has adapted to plastic
- Riding for the Disabled transformed my life, says dressage great Baker
- To tackle plastic scourge, Philippines makes companies pay
- Pacers hold off Celtics in overtime, Cavs rout Lakers in James family return
- Taiwan shuts offices, schools as Super Typhoon Kong-rey nears
- North Korea fires ICBM as US, Seoul slam Russia deployment
- Bolivia's president demands end to roadblocks
- Kamala or Harris? How to thread the needle on politics, gender and race
- Striking Boeing workers aim to restore old retirement program
- What would a Trump win mean for abortion in the United States?
- 4,000-year-old town discovered hidden in Arabian oasis
- Wind, rain batter Taiwan as Super Typhoon Kong-rey nears
- North Korea fires 'long-range' ballistic missile, Seoul says
- Trump trash talks Harris as Democrat fends off 'garbage' fallout
- Majority of Mexican Supreme Court judges resign after judicial reforms
- Funding hurdle at world's biggest nature protection summit
- Man Utd target Amorim as caretaker boss Van Nistelrooy says 'I'm here to help'
- Meta shows strong growth as AI spending surges
- Microsoft beats expectations, but AI concerns force shares down
- Argentina hit by massive transport strike
CMSC | 0.08% | 24.59 | $ | |
RIO | -1.03% | 65.9 | $ | |
BCE | -0.68% | 32.24 | $ | |
SCS | 0.16% | 12.23 | $ | |
CMSD | -0.04% | 24.83 | $ | |
JRI | 0.54% | 13.05 | $ | |
RBGPF | -0.13% | 60.92 | $ | |
RYCEF | -0.42% | 7.22 | $ | |
BCC | 2.03% | 134.37 | $ | |
NGG | -0.08% | 65.07 | $ | |
VOD | 1.17% | 9.39 | $ | |
AZN | -3.28% | 72.83 | $ | |
BTI | -0.29% | 34.36 | $ | |
RELX | -2.13% | 46.91 | $ | |
GSK | -3.13% | 37.01 | $ | |
BP | -1.17% | 29.02 | $ |
Lips, teeth and breasts: Albania cashes in on medical tourism
Once it was Europe's North Korea, a cloistered communist dictatorship. But now Albania lures millions of tourists a year, with a growing portion coming in search of a radiant smile, luscious lips or better breasts.
"I don't like to talk about medical tourism. It's a bit scary," said Dritan Gremi, who heads a dental clinic in the capital Tirana.
"I prefer to talk about happiness tourism, which makes people happy."
Gremi said his clinic offers "high-quality care with equipment that is guaranteed and certified" to European standards at a fraction of the price.
He has Italian, French, Belgian and Swiss clients often lured with package deals that include travel and accommodation costs.
With scandals about shoddy work and disfigured clients taking some of the shine off medical tourism elsewhere, Albanian health authorities say they insist on high quality care.
Prosecutors carried out checks on 30 cosmetic clinics this month looking for contraband products and Botox, which is banned in Albania.
- Smile sale -
Stephane Pealat's journey to Albania started with the hopes for a new, affordable smile.
He and his brother, who are from Valence in the south of France, have long suffered from dental problems, including tooth loss that pushed him to seek a complex dental implant procedure.
"In France we had an initial estimate which was very, very expensive. Then we started looking on the internet -- Bulgaria, Turkey, Albania, Spain," Pealat told AFP.
He learned about the Gremi clinic during a consultation session in Lyon with Albanian dentists.
After an initial visit in August to tour the facilities in Tirana, Pealat and his brother returned in the autumn.
According to Pealat, the dental implant operation he opted for cost roughly 50,000 euros ($54,000) in France, compared to just 13,500 euros in Albania.
It was no small amount for Pealat.
"It is important to have a beautiful smile," he said.
Nathalie Gangloff, who works as an event organiser at a nursing home in Cognac in western France, also opted for an Albania clinic to treat her dental issues.
"My doctor in France told me about a TV documentary" about medical tourism in Albania, Gangloff told AFP.
She paid under 15,000 euros to have her teeth done compared to the 42,000 euros that she would have had to spend in France.
After extractions and implants in February, she returned to Tirana in mid-September for her final work, happy to have regained her smile.
"With my job, it's important to have beautiful teeth and a good hairdo," she told AFP, saying she immediately changed her Facebook profile picture to show off her new pearly whites.
- 'Love and happiness' -
Low overheads and tax has helped Albanian clinics lure customers with lower prices.
The country's medical tourism sector is estimated to earn between 200 and 250 million euros a year, with at least 50,000 Italians visiting Tirana for treatment every year.
However, the procedures are not risk free.
The head of Albania's national doctors association Fatmir Ibrahimaj said both foreign and local patients should not rely on online advertising alone for cosmetic procedures and should due to their due diligence before undergoing treatment.
"A doctor is not a five-star or no-star hotel," Ibrahimaj told reporters.
For Anna Maria, an Italian from Milan, the "smile of the soul passes also through the lips".
The psychologist in her 30s -- who did not want to give her surname -- visited Albania for dental veneers and a lip procedure with the hopes of improving her smile.
"More and more foreign tourists are also getting cosmetic treatments to brighten up their smile," said Monika Fida, a dermatologist and university lecturer in Tirana.
Injections of hyaluronic acid into the lips are particularly popular.
"Above all, they want to feel good, and have well-shaped lips as naturally as possible," added Fida, who said between 750 and 1,000 foreign patients visit her clinic every year.
Vera Panaitov, a 60-year-old Italian chef from Verona, initially came to have her teeth done.
But once 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 told AFP, smiling from her hospital bed, saying she felt "happy and rejuvenated".
Christine Cincunegui, a French businesswoman, may soon follow her.
In Paris, she seemed set on going ahead with a dental procedure in Albania after consulting practitioners visiting the French capital.
"Feeling more beautiful and having fun? What more do we want?" she told AFP.
J.Bergmann--BTB