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2019-02-22 Back to list

Above Expectations: Tourism in 2018

Accommodation services in Kaunas were used by 317 656 guests last year, that’s an 8.2% growth compared to 2017.

2018 was a record year for tourism in Lithuania. 3,6 million people used accommodation services for at least one night while travelling in Lithuania; 1,7 million of them were foreign guests. That’s an 11.3% growth compared to 2017! In fact, the numbers are two times bigger than predicted by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation.

Last year, the biggest group of foreign guests came to Lithuania from Germany. That’s 214 100 people or 21.6% more than in 2017. These are the most significant numbers of German guests in Lithuania ever. The growth of guests from the UK has also been significant — the numbers have risen by 19.1%. 6.9% more guests from France, Italy and the Scandinavian countries discovered Lithuania last year.

Lithuania has been steadily investing in marketing itself in select countries; the tools and channels selected have proven themselves highly successful. Last year, we greeted 11.6% more guests from the US, 22.3% more guests from Japan, 20.6% more guests from China and 27.3% more guests from Israel.


Kaunas has great news, too. We’ve managed to achieve more than planned for 2018. Accommodation services were used by 317 656 guests last year, that’s an 8.2% growth compared to 2017. The most significant groups among our guests were, same as in the country level, travellers from Germany (23 456 guests, 17% growth. In 2018, Kaunas was visited by 14% more Finns, 17% more Poles and 44% more Ukrainian travellers, among guests from other countries, including rising numbers of guests from Japan and Israel.

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Town Hall Square is often the starting point for discovering our city. Picture by A. Aleksandravičius.

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The Pažaislis monastery is one of the most-visited objects of interest in Kaunas, fancied by both local travellers and guests from foreign countries. Picture by A. Aleksandravičius.

114 062 guests visited the Kaunas IN tourism information centres last year; 62.1% of them were foreign guests seeking information about our city. Once again, our tourism professionals met a significant number of guests from Germany, as well as Poland, France and Spain. We're happy about more and more of Finnish, Japanese and Israeli travellers contacting us, as well as guests from the US.



The numbers provided by The Lithuanian Department of Statistics do not include accommodation at homesteads and Airbnb. It’s predicted that, if it were possible to accumulate, the total numbers would be approx. 30% bigger.

Information by “Keliauk Lietuvoje” and “Kaunas IN”

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