EIMIN: Lithuania's tourism roadmap approved
The Ministry of the Economy and Innovation, together with its partners, has prepared and approved a set of strategic guidelines for the long-term development of the tourism sector - the Lithuanian Tourism Roadmap. It outlines ambitious goals and targets to be achieved by 2030 in order to grow the tourism sector.
"This is a crucial step that will also contribute to Lithuania's success in competing on the international market. One of the main objectives is to increase the share of tourism in the value added generated by the sector from 2.2% in 2022 to 4.5% in 2030. This will also be achieved through key actions such as green transformation, digitalisation and ensuring the sector's resilience to crises," said Aušrinė Armonaitė, Minister of the Economy and Innovation.
The Lithuanian Tourism Sector Roadmap aims to ensure the growth of the tourism sector, the efficient use of funds, and to increase the transparency of the tourism sector and its importance to the national economy.
"After analysing not only our country's strategic plans, but also international and neighbouring countries' strategies, we have clearly defined a vision for the future of tourism in the Lithuanian Tourism Roadmap - the sector must be sustainable, inclusive and make a significant contribution to the Lithuanian economy. This year, we expect the number of tourists to grow by a quarter, but what is important is the rising cost of travel, which will become direct income for businesses and the state budget," says Karolis Žemaitis, Vice-Minister of the Ministry of the Economy and Innovation.
The strategy has four main strands. The first is to create a favourable ecosystem for the development of sustainable tourism. This will be achieved by creating a national certification system for tourism businesses and organising communication campaigns on sustainability in tourism. Training of tourism sector personnel on the Green Deal.
The second objective is to ensure that Lithuania becomes an attractive tourist destination in the Baltic region. The aim is to create an image of Lithuania as a green, sustainable tourist destination, to ensure effective and joint marketing of the country's main events, tourist attractions and products, and to increase demand for Lithuania as a tourist destination.
Innovative and data-driven tourism is the third direction of the Lithuanian Tourism Roadmap. It ensures that tourism policy is based on up-to-date, comprehensive and accurate data. It also encourages tourism service providers to adopt innovative solutions and to collect, share and use more and more tourism data. To this end, the skills of tourism professionals will be enhanced through the use of IT tools.
The fourth objective is to ensure that Lithuania becomes a resilient and competitive tourism destination. This includes more effective cooperation between tourism regions and improved training of tourism personnel.
The document also defines priority inbound tourism markets, divided into four segments. High-intensity markets have been selected as they generate the highest tourist flows and have high potential: Germany, Poland, the UK and Israel. Other countries in Western, Southern and Northern Europe are classified as target potential markets, each generating a few per cent of arrivals.
Priority neighbouring markets have also been identified - Latvia and Estonia - as well as more distant markets - the former Chinese flows are now being reversed by developing links in South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. Cooperation with the USA and Japan is also continuing.
Last updated: 02-09-2024
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