Tourism in Vilnius continues to grow

In 2017, Vilnius had 1.07 million visitors, which is 3.7 per cent up on 2016. This has been testified today by the quarterly statistics on accommodation services released by Statistics Lithuania for Q4 2017. The largest number of tourists came last year from Belarus, Poland, Russia, Germany and Latvia.

The rapid growth in tourism, which accounted for 7 and 5 per cent increase in Q1 and Q2 respectively, and which fell to 2 per cent in Q3 due to the reconstruction of the International Vilnius Airport, recovered in the autumn and reached 7.5 per cent in the last quarter.

The festive month of December marked a particular rise in tourism. During the Christmas period, 81.6 thousand guests visited Vilnius, which is 8.5 per cent up on previous year. That month saw twice as many tourists from Spain; there was a significant increase in the number of tourists from Poland (32 %) and Germany (21 %).

‘As we had predicted the tourism growth, having subsided in summer due to the reconstruction of the airport, recovered and gained momentum reaching 7.5 % in the last quarter of 2017. The tourism growth in Vilnius is supported by the active promotion of the city in the target markets and the efforts of all the participants of the tourism sector in the city’, said Inga Romanovskienė, Director of the Tourism and Business Development Agency of Vilnius City. ‘We are particularly pleased with the success of the Vilnius Christmas project and its presentation in the world. The news of one of the most beautiful Christmas tree in the world attracted to our city about 8.5 % more tourists than last year’.

The active promotion of the city abroad has been gaining momentum. That is why we expect an increased foreigners’ interest this year. As early as at the beginning of the year, the acclaimed European media channels ran our commercials promoting Vilnius as the hottest destinations in 2018.

The largest Finnish travel magazine Mondo chose Vilnius as the hottest destination for the weekend in 2018. The legendary Parisian newspaper Le Parisien presented Vilnius as a city full of incredible treasures. The popular weekly newspaper of French cultural news Telerama placed Vilnius among the ten recommended short trip destinations in 2018.