The number of tourists from neighboring Latvia, Poland and Estonia rose by around 15 percent, the capital’s tourism and investment promotion agency Go Vilnius said.
According to figures from Statistics Lithuania, a total of 209,500 visitors stayed at Vilnius’ hotels and other accommodation establishments in the first quarter, with the number of overnight stays up by 4.3 percent year-on-year to 389,500 stays.
The number of foreign guests increased by 6.4 percent to 161,000, accounting for almost four-fifths of all guests. The largest numbers of tourists came from Belarus, Russia, Latvia, Poland and Germany.
Jolanta Beniulienė, head of tourism and convention bureau at Go Vilnius, says that the agency’s tourism marketing efforts and cooperation with travel guide book publishers Lonely Planet and Expedia and with the media in foreign countries, especially Latvia, Poland, Germany and France, have yield results.