EU – Baltic States, Good for Business, Latvia, Tourism

This year's theme for the European Destinations of Excellence Awards is "accessible tourism" or tourism for people with disabilities. Five tourism destinations from Latvia applied for the project this year – Jurmala, Sigulda, Jelgava, Liepaja and Daugavpils.

EDEN Latvia Project Manager Armands Muiznieks points out that Liepaja is a tourism destination with a high added value, ensuring high quality tourism services for travelers with various interests and needs, including persons with disabilities.

"Liepaja has become a popular destination for business, health and culture tourism. The goal of EDEN project is to draw attention to tourism accessibility among different groups of people and facilitate the participation of local governments – potential tourism destinations – in balanced tourism development. When assessing this year's applicants, we concluded that there are relatively many tourism destinations in Latvia that are accessible to people with special needs. However, information about them is not always available. Therefore, within the framework of the project, a special map of Latvia and a section in the national tourism portal "www.latvia.travel" will be created for each traveler with disabilities to be able to find the most suitable destination," informs Muiznieks.