Tourism in Lithuania: the role of public governance

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Turizmas; Paslaugų sektorius; Tourism; Service sector.

ENConsidering economical growth of service sector and changes of internal service market, tourism services become tremendously important in changing the quality of life and aspiring prosperous society. Additional value of tourism services could also be justified by the fact that each man of the world has possibly travelled at least once. The topic of tourism is interesting to nearly everybody, but evaluating economic, social any other sustainable tourism development aspects, the impact of additional value of tourism sector for the welfare of the people in any country is obvious. Serious weaknesses in Lithuanian tourism industry are analyzed and optimal solutions to encourage the intensity of the tourist flow have been sought on the governmental level. The content of the article is based on twenty years of tourism planning process, strategic decision making and long-term time authors’ experience. The objective of the article is to evaluate the process of the state’s strategic planning and to provide possible areas for its improvement in order to foster tourism development in Lithuania. Analysing existing vertical tourism planning process at the level of governance, methodological aspects are perceived, which do not allow achieving the best outcome for the tourism because of the shortages in planning. Although the strategic State decision to develop tourism is essentially correct, the results hinder to succeed necessary results, due to the lack of the planning tools at the inter-institutional-horizontal level. Governmental level of Tourism development needs holistic approach – integrated analysis in vertical and horizontal levels, methodological overview, using professional contention and implementation of strategic expedient development tools.The main trends of the Lithuanian tourism strategic planning could be addressed in the following ways: ensuring inter-institutional cooperation – establishing the relevant institutions responsible for tourism development within departments and nominating responsible persons for the job; enhancing the local community’s interest in strengthening tourism by educating the community and providing knowledge about the tourism and the tourism business opportunities, involving the local community into tourism and foster the development of their business; improving service quality process, it is highly recommended to encourage associations or other organizations to classify and certify service providers, their services, quality control, thus enhancing the business initiative to provide appropriate and high quality services and reducing the volume of Tourism Department activities. [From the publication]