Lithuania unfriendly to tourists?

World Economic Forum just announced the ranking of countries most and least friendly to tourists.  Lithuania’s international image was struck with a hard blow. Bolivia turned out to be the country tourists should avoid. Venezuela was next on the list. Third place went to Russia. In the top five least friendly countries are also Kuwait and… Lithuania. Unfortunatley, Lithuania turned out the be the European Union’s leader in this respect.  

The country that treats its tourists the best, but is not necessairly associated with tourism, is Iceland!  Tourists can expect a warm welcome in New Zealand and Marocco. Macedonia and Austria also found themselves in the top five most friendly countries to tourists. Poland also can be found on the World Economic Forum list but only in the 118 place…

One of the evaluated categories was the inhabitants’ attitude towards tourists. The data was gathered and provided by international travel agencies and other tourism related organisations.

Against this data, the optimistic information based on the research from 2012 supplied by the local council of Vilnius don’t look well. According to local council information, respondents (foreign tourists) favorably rated Vilnius (4 out of 5 possible points). Hospitality, friendly attitudes of Vilnius citizens and taxi service (not including airport taxi service) were rated the highest. Public restrooms and information about public transportation were rated a bit lower. 81 % of respondents claimed that it is ‘possible’ or ‘very possible’ that they will return to Vilnius in the next five years. Almost all of them said that they will recommend the capital of Lithuania to their friends.

The interesting thing is that Vilnius received the highest ratings from Polish tourists and the lowest from the French ones. It seems the sentiment, that descendants of Napoleon lack, makes a difference. Or maybe nothing has simply changed in Lithuania since 1812 when it comes to hospitality?

Based on: PAP, vilnius.lt

Source: http://www.wilnoteka.lt/pl/artykul/litwa-niezyczliwa-turystom

Tłumaczenie Justyna Kaczmarek w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Justyna Kaczmarek within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.