At 23-26 of June in Split, Croatia was one of the most significant events of the conference of tourism professionals' blue CONFEC 2011.

In this business mission, gathered participants from 25 European countries, united in their goal to make the most promising contacts.  For the fifth time at the conference, tourism professionals and the Lithuanian State Tourism Department brought back from Croatia, an impressive amount of useful contacts which is likely to help Lithuanian's future tourism related business events.

With the initiative of Vilnius Tourist Information Centre & Convention Bureau a meeting of the representatives of three Baltic States was organized in Vilnius last week. Estonia was represented by the director of Estonian Convention Bureau Kadri Karu and Latvia – by the Marketing Manager Aigars Smiltans acting on behalf of “Meet Riga” which is conducting a function of the convention bureau.

“The meeting was encouraged by the world-changing markets and new trends of conference planning. All the changes call for a fresh look at the country’s or city’s possibilities to introduce itself as a potential destination. Success requires the cooperation at the regional level”, - says Jolanta Beniuliene, the director of Vilnius Tourist Information Centre & Convention Bureau.

In 2012 a new economy-class Nordic Choice Hotel will be opened in Vilnius. The hotel will be located near the Old Town and will have 200 economy-class rooms, 4 conference halls, an underground parking and a  big fitness center.

The total value of the project is estimated to be about 8.7 million Euros, 25% of the amount being covered by EU structural funds. The project is being carried out by Norwegian firm Selvaag.

Nordic Choice Hotels currently runs 170 hotels in Scandinavia and the Baltic states under a franchising agreement with Choice Hotels International. In the global hotel group rankings by MKG Hospitality, Choice Hotels International is ranked sixth among ten largest hotel groups worldwide, including Intercontinental Hotels Group, Hilton Worldwide, Marriott International, Accor.

If you plan to start business in the Baltic States, Central and Eastern Europe, Lithuania’s exhibition and congress centre Litexpo is an ideal place to make the first step. Litexpo has the most modern exposition and conference spaces and attracts the most important exhibitions of the Baltic region. Upon arriving at Litexpo you will find yourself among the leaders.

Litexpo is the largest and most modern exhibition and conference centre in the Baltic States. The area of the centre covers 16,6 thousand square meters “under the roof” and open-air grounds cover 13 thousand square meters. This year modernisation of the conference centre has been completed and 11 renewed conference halls in which from 30 to 1800 participants can work opened their door. 

The geographical centre of Europe, about 1,5 hour‘s flight from Copenhagen or Warsaw, only two hours from Frankfurt, Vienna or Moscow, the Old Town inscribed in the Unesco World Heritage Site, high-quality services and technical infrastructure, an excellent price-quality ratio. This is the capital of Lithuania – Vilnius.

According to the data, presented by the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) - Vilnius takes place 53 on the list of the cities that are the most popular destinations for meeting planners. All in all, there are more than 500 cities of the world on the ICCA list, which are ranked according to the number of international events held there. Vilnius shares its place with such cities as Melbourne (Australia), Krakow (Poland) and Venice (Italy). From 2001 to 2010, the number of international events held in Vilnius that had met the ICCA criteria increased from 6 to 35. The results reveal that Vilnius is becoming more and more attractive for meeting planners and organizers on the international level thus proving to be the ideal venue for international scientific and business events.

Ryanair, Europe’s favourite low cost airline is announcing its sixth Vilnius route to Bremen (Germany) which will operate alongside Barcelona, Dublin, London, Milan and Rome from May 2011.

With Bremen Ryanair is adding a very popular destination to the network from Vilnius. Commence on the 22nd of May 2011, the route to Bremen will be operated 4 times per week: on Mondays, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. This is the 1st Ryanair route to Germany from Vilnius and sure to be a great success.

Wizz Air, the largest low fare - low cost airline in Central and Eastern Europe announced today that it would establish its 14th operating base in Vilnius, Lithuania. Initially the airline will deploy one brand new Airbus A320 aircraft, starting from April 16th, 2011.
Concurrently, Wizz Air will launch eight new routes from Vilnius to London-Luton, Doncaster-Sheffield (UK), Cork (Ireland), Eindhoven (Netherlands), Stockholm - Skavsta (Sweden), Milan-Bergamo, Rome-Fiumicino (Italy), and Barcelona (Spain).

Jozsef Varadi, Chief Executive Officer of Wizz Air said: “We are extremely delighted to reach our next expansion milestone. The opening of the Vilnius base will allow many people to enjoy our truly low fares coupled with excellent Wizz travel experience. Beyond further enhancing the travel opportunities in the Lithuanian market, we will create hundreds of local jobs and significant revenue uplift for the local tourism industry.”

Now it is easy to reach Lithuania with direct low pricing flights.

Fly to Kaunas from:

Tampere from  14,00 one way/ 28,00 return ticket

Brussels (Charleroi)  from  17,99 one way/ 35,98 return ticket

Dusseldorf (Weeze)  from  17,99 one way/ 35,98 return ticket