During the first half of 2012, Kaunas has been visited by more than 79, 000 tourists. Just as previous years have showed, most of Kaunas visitors are from Germany, United Kingdom, Russia as well as Scandinavian countries.
Kaunas Tourism Information Centre director Sigitas Sidaravičius in the official municipality’s press announcement has affirmed that this tourist season for Kaunas has been satisfactory. Moreover, he claims that an intensification of the intellectual tourism tendency has been noticed. During this season foreign travellers were particularly interested in Pažaislis Music Festival, high numbers of tourists visited Kaunas for the festival of living/ interactive history ‘Europe. Napoleon I in Kaunas. 1812’. Kaunas tourists are interested and eager to experience city’s cultural life, explore historical routes and visit museums.
S. Sidaravičius has also indicated that the main goal for the next year’s tourism season is to maintain the markets that have already been engaged – the relationships with Spain and France which have been established during the past year.
In 2011 Kaunas, also known as the temporary capital city of Lithuania, greeted over 172,000 travellers. Tourist traffic tends to escalate in May and continues to grow throughout the busiest time of tourism season in Lithuania – months of summer and September.
According to the prognosis by the National Department of Tourism director Raimonda Balnienė, in 2012, Lithuania is expecting a record number of 2 million tourists, or in other words – overall 15 percent higher numbers than in 2011.
Translated by Simona Skonsmonaitė
Edited by Charlotte Radford
I think, and a strong belief of mine is that all they have to do is come once, if they come one time I feel that they will be pleasantly surprised and probably come again(also with many other places & countries). So the tourist department should find a way to get people to come for the first time (perhaps incentives or sizable discounts). Worth a shot I would say, just an idea, after all that’s what we need more of is ideas.
This is good news; we seem to get more of it in this neck of the woods than in many other parts of Europe. I think the Baltic States are very much undersold. In my experience, and I do travel and live in Western Europe, most people are unknowing of the nature, and opportunities offered by these wonderful nations.
Like me, if they bite the bullet, they will be delightfully surprised. If the best salesman of all is word of mouth (and now the internet); the region can expect an accelerating increase of travelers and tourists.