At the end of 2016, an advertising page of the Lithuanian tourism products in the Chinese language was created at the order of the State Department of Tourism and the banners making them publicly available were placed on the CTRIP platform, the so-called Chinese TripAdvisor reaching 250 million audience. The largest cities of Lithuania, the conference tourism, SPA, nature, cuisine of the country were presented on the page, State Department of Tourism reported in a press release.
During the first months, the banner advertising Lithuania on the CTRIP platform was the most popular among all other introduced tourist destinations.
This advertising campaign was aimed at introducing new tourism products of Lithuania to the Chinese market, strengthening the trend to travel to Lithuania, increasing the sales of the Lithuanian tourism products in China.
According to Olga Gončarova, the acting head of the Incoming Tourism Subdivision of the State Department of Tourism, who coordinates the tourism marketing in China, the growth of tourist flows from China may also be encouraged by the fact that even 5 Chinese trip operators who participated in the study tour around Lithuania organised by the State Department of Tourism have included our country in the travel packages distributed this year.
The inbound tourism flows from China to Lithuania increase every year: in 2016, 12 thousand tourists from China, i.e. 25.3 per cent more than in 2015, were accommodated in Lithuania. In 2016, the number of nights of the Chinese people in our country was 20.3 thousand (+12.4 per cent). In 2015, the expenses of tourists from China amounted to EUR 6.9 million (+7.8 per cent), the average expenses of one stay amounted to EUR 471.10.