Baltic States

Baltic States.

Mass tourism has not hit the Baltic States just yet. According to the many surveys, the

Baltic States will experience a major tourism boom in upcoming years. Also, The World Tourism Organization (WTO) has forecasted that by the year 2020 tourism in the Baltic Sea region will have experienced the greatest growth of all the regions of Europe.

In Baltic States there are low prices, good flight connections offered by budget airlines and there are many attractions. Baltic States attract more and more tourists with their diverse offers of almost unexplored, long, beautiful Baltic Sea beaches, historic sites and affordable wellness trips. Wealthy westerners also have discovered Baltic States impressive Baroque capital cities of Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius, and several attractive resorts in warm summer.

All that raises a problem, the demand sometimes is so high that hotels cannot keep up with the rapid inflow of tourists. For example, a recently opened, up-scale hotel in Riga is currently booked at all times. This problem is not only in Latvia, other Baltic states have similar issue. This problem increases during the high season.

This raise of interest can be explained with relatively low prices. According to Roland Conrady, "Short trips to the Baltic states can be up to 70 percent cheaper compared to well establish tourism destinations."

The airline industry is also growing because of new tourism boom. There are 124 direct flights that carry passengers to cities between Germany and the new member states of EU.

The interest in Baltic States has increased because the countries joined European Union, and that has made them more recognizable in other countries.

The three Baltic States are relatively new holiday destinations for Europeans. However the figures are increasing. Baltic States do not provide the necessary accommodations, such as hotels, restaurants and general tourist offers required to satisfy the package tourism industry. However, a lot is being done, more hotels are added, and so the supply can meet the demand eventually. If the necessary changes are done, in near future Baltic states will experience the hotel and restaurant boom. However, tourism in these states in western sense is very new. They will need to change from the old system to the new. The old type of Soviet tourism did