News: Latvia is visited by 30% more tourists

According to the statistical data provided by the Central Statistics Office, the number of foreign visitors registered in the hotels and other dwellings in Latvia during the first half of 2011 has reached almost 445 thousands, which represents an increase of nearly 30% compared to the same period of the last year. The number of foreigners registered in Latvia during the first half of the year who chose to stay overnight exceeded amount registered over the last ten years. During the first part of the year, a significant proportion of the tourists — nearly 81% — chose to stay overnight in Riga.

The director of Latvian Tourism Development Agency Armands Slokenbergs says: The escalation of the number of tourists has been facilitated by the joint marketing activities carried out by the industry and LTDA and the advantage also partly goes to the new tourism image of Latvia and the slogan Best enjoyed slowly which has been recognized by both the local tourism professionals and international experts from the World Tourism Organization and the world’s largest travel guide The Lonely Planet. In 2011, we predict excellent results in the tourism business. Knowing that during the next years the scope of LTDA's marketing activities will become broader, we can affirm that Latvia has solidly and safely returned to the tourism market as a tourist destination.