Mayor of Vilnius accepted head of China’ s largest tourism company of China

Today, Mayor of Vilnius Remigijus Šimašius accepted the Regional Director Roger Qiu of China’s largest tourism company Ctrip and familiarised the guest with the potential of Vilnius tourism and investment, told him about a new tourism and business promotion agency “GO Vilnius” being developed in the capital.

China is a distant important country in the capital’s marketing strategy in which attempts will be made to raise awareness about Vilnius and offer Chinese new tourism and business services. Recently, the number of Chinese tourists has increased by 28 percent. Based on statistics of lodging companies, Vilnius was visited by more than 7 thousand guests from China last year, as compared to 4-5 thousand a year before. Roger Qiu came to Lithuania to see what we could offer to tourists from China, whether the investment environment in our city is attractive.

“Vilnius is a young, vibrant and fast growing European city of the future with a great potential characterised by good business climate, life quality, clean water and air. Recent years saw the establishment of 16 new foreign business service and technology centres in it. We seek that the city and public transport became more friendly for city visitors. Besides, Vilnius may boast of a plenitude of cultural and sports events”, told Mayor of the City.

For his part, Mayor of the City also was interested to find out what Chinese tourists looked for in Europe and discussed what specific tourism services could be offered to them by Vilnius. Visiting Vilnius for the first Mr. Roger Qiu was mostly surprised by silence and cleanliness of our city, balance of modernity and cosmopolitism – all this is attractive and produces an impression on Chinese tourists.

The Mayor of Vilnius drew attention of the guest to the fact that Vilnius also had several very exclusive and attractive active leisure entertainment for tourists – flights with air balloon above the city and kayaking along the Neris in the very centre of the city. One more obvious advantage of Vilnius – the best wireless internet (Wi-Fi) network praised for data transfer and downloading speed by all guests from abroad.

The representative of Ctrip tourism company was briefed on a new agency ‘GO Vilnius’ being developed that will take care to make city’s investment environment even more attractive, and to bring 1.03 million tourists to Vilnius in 2016. It will also actively contribute to the advent of at least 5 international technology companies and funds.

The guest from Shanghai saw around the Old Town of Vilnius, Užupis. He will also visit Trakai, Kaunas and Druskininkai where he will explore the most diverse and exclusive tourism possibilities and services: from the organization of weddings for tourists, culture, adventure tourism to the overview of specific hotels. We expect that educational campaigns will attract more tourists to Vilnius from China already this summer.