The Capital of a Small European Nation Figured Out How to Get The World Talking About a Visit

Tourism boards have a difficult task. For the most part people don’t choose where to visit because of ad campaigns. Everyone wants tourism dollars, but Virginia isn’t suddenly interesting because “Virginia is for Lovers” it has beauty and history and serves as a bedroom community for Washington DC.

Sometimes the challenge is too great, three years ago Ithaca, New York’s tourism board said you really should just go to Florida for the winter.

Still there’s a lot of money to throw around in search of the dream, it often winds up in corruption, and even more often in bad ideas. Like in The West Wing when Martin Sheen was being pitched as Governor of New Hampshire on a new state slogan:

Last year Australia’s Northern Territory had an unofficial tourism slogan that was ruled to be obscene.

Now there’s a new Lithuanian tourism campaign designed to get people talking. They call themselves the ‘g spot’ of Europe, “nobody knows where it is but when you find it, it’s amazing.”

Their quiz actually made me blush a little. Their things to do – like the National Gallery of Art – are described as “pleasure spots.”

Truth is though that while this isn’t likely to directly cause people to visit, it is likely to raise awareness for Vilnius, Lithuania.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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