In 2024, Kushner – a real estate developer, investor and negotiator of the Trump administration in Gaza, Iran and Ukraine – announced the plans of his private equity company, Affinity Partners, to create a major luxury hotel on the Albanian Sazan Island and the Zvernec coastline near Vlora, with a capacity of up to 10,000 hotel rooms.
He visited the site with his wife, Ivanka Trump, in January 2026, while in April, the Prime Minister of Albania Edi Rama. confirmed to POLITICO that discussions on the project were ongoing.
The proposed development is located within a protected natural ecosystem once home to flamingos, more than 200 species of migratory birds, Mediterranean monk seals and nesting sea turtles. But controversial changes in Albania’s law on protected areas in 2024 paved the way for tourism development in some protected areas.
Earlier on Wednesday, Rama told CNN International that the project is not yet in place and that an environmental assessment is still being conducted. He also added that “The challenge is not to pour concrete over the heads of flamingos. The challenge is to prove that development and nature do not just live together, but nature and development need each other.”
Controversy escalated in late May when developers surrounded part of the site with barbed wire, leading to protests, confrontations with private security guards, several arrests and the jailing of a security guard accused of assaulting and illegally detaining a protester.
The protests have spread to Tirana, and the flamingo has become a symbol of the movement, emerging as well posts on social networks, accompanied by the title “flamingo revolution.”
Suzi, a protester who works in the tourism industry, who, like others in this article, has not been named for fear of reprisals, said: “We are protesting because we are in danger of giving our land to people who do not want to help Albanians, but to benefit themselves.”
