• “The smallest republic in the world, Užupis, located in the capital of Lithuania, is a must-see for any visitor to Europe”, the biggest German national broadcaster “Deutsche Welle” announces as it introduces a video commentary on Užupis in its website that has a readership of 1.3 million. Soon Lithuania will also be covered in an enormously popular “NTV” cooking show “Poedem, poedim!” (“Let’s go, let’s eat!”). It has taken two years for the Department of Tourism to arrange an fam trip with the host of the show John Warren from Great Britain. Lithuania will be visited and covered by “Forbes”, “The Telegraph”, “National Geographic” as well as by journalists from other famous magazines from priority incoming tourism markets. Lithuanian tourism stories are of particular interest to global media giants this year“We can already see that this year is going to be special because of the importance of the press that journalists represent who are coming to Lithuania. It is the result of consistent work and high quality contacts that Lithuania is going to be introduced as an attractive tourist destination in all world-famous media channels. By planning fam trips for journalists for this year, we were carrying out strict selection and consulting our foreign representatives and embassies, since we cannot invite everyone willing to come and visit us, unfortunately. Besides, we develop the agenda of each visit independently, we consult closely with tourism information centres in an effort to fully meet the journalists’ interests and to prepare a highly exceptional agenda of their stay”, says Indrė Trakimaitė-Šeškuvienė, the acting director of the Department of Tourism.

  In the upcoming tourism season, the team of the Department of Tourism is impatiently looking forward to planned introductory tours for journalists from Great Britain who represent national daily newspapers “The Telegraph”, “The Guardian”, “The Express”, as well as “National Geographic”.
  David Lyndo, also known as Urban Birder in the UK, is also expected to pay a visit to Lithuania. He is an enthusiast of bird watching, a photographer, a filmer and an author of bird watching and its possibilities. Lithuania caught his particular interest during a niche exhibition in Rutland (UK) last year. The United Kingdom is known for a number of tourists who take an interest in bird watching, therefore, a message spread about birds breeding in Lithuania or migrating through it could draw the attention of the British tourists.

France is planning to give some attention to Lithuania in its morning show “Télématin“ on “France 2” TV channel, as well as in a women’s magazine “Biba” with a circulation of 306 thousand, and in a Parisian lifestyle weekly “Telerama Sortir” or in a montly travel journal for professionals “L‘Echo Touristique” among others. Already at the end of April the Department of Tourism is going to organise an introductory tour to a journalist of TV show “La Quotidienne“ of “France 5” who is going to make a commentary about possibilities of a weekend trip to Vilnius and its surroundings.

Introductory tours will be organised to Italian journalists from “Elle”, “Style Magazine” published with “Corriere della Sera”, “La Stampa”, “Vanity Fair”, “La Repubblica”, Nationalgeographic.it; Lithuania also has the attention of gastronomy magazines like “Viaggi del Gusto” and a gastronomy guide “Gambero Rosso”.
High-end Lithuanian restaurants and local chefs are of interest to Jim Dobson, a journalist of the influential US businesses magazine “Forbes”; an introductory tour to this journalist at the end of June is being thoroughly arranged.
Visits of journalists of flight magazines “Blue Wings” (available in “Finnair” planes) and “Skyward” (available in “Japan Airlines” planes) to Lithuania are also important.
We also have a goal to invite “China Daily” journalists to Lithuania, as well as the Finnish travel magazine “Mondo”, the German national newspaper “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, one of the key daily newspapers of Berlin “Der Tagesspiegel”, “Deutschlandradio”, one of the key weeklies in Sweden “Aftonbladet”, another top Swedish weekly “Icakurirer”, negotiations with the British travel magazine “Wanderlust”, which announced Lithuania one of the hottest travel destinations of 2018, are ongoing.

Source: tourism.lt