As a tourist destination, Lithuania suffers from a somewhat low profile. It attracts little more than 4 million visitors annually – the majority of whom are day trippers from poor countries such as neighbouring Belarus and Poland. Although Lithuania has a range of tourist attractions – from beaches to historic cities – surprisingly few travellers from Western Europe are drawn to this northern country. In 2010, just over 65,000 tourists came from the UK, while 30,300 originated in France.

Lithuania’s reliance on visitors from poor, formerly Soviet-controlled countries is a weak point. Not only do consumers in those countries spend less in Lithuania than wealthier visitors from say, Germany or Scandinavia, they also do not stay in the country for more than a day or two.

Domestic travellers, for their part, are suffering from a lack of consumer confidence, one of the consequences of the economic recession. In 2010, 2.4 million Lithuanians took a trip at home – 400,000 fewer than in 2008. The tourism spend, by both domestic and foreign tourists (business and leisure), dropped to US$2.15 billion in 2010 – down from a high of US$2.81 billion in 2008.