Covid-19, Crisis, Lithuania, Tourism

International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics Friday, 29.03.2024, 11:02

Guides ask for state assistance in Lithuania after losing jobs due to coronavirus

BC, Vilnius, 30.06.2020.Print version
Guides have gathered in Vilnius on Tuesday to attract attention to the problems being faced by workers from the tourism sector after they lost jobs or income due to the coronavirus pandemic, informed LETA/BNS.

Under the slogans Guides Together and Guide Work Matters, several dozen guides took an open tourist bus to move from the Subacius observation site towards the Town Hall in central Vilnius where they were joined by other colleagues and put up colorful umbrellas to attract the attention of passers-by.


The move took place in several European cities at the same time.


"We would like to express solidarity with guides from Hungary and all over the world who are now sitting without work. We would like to express solidarity and attract attention to our existence in this life for us to be remembered, that we are alive and have nothing to do," Egle Likaite, a guide working abroad, and now in Lithuania, told LETA/BNS.


Linas Daubaras, president of the Lithuanian Guide Union, says only part of representatives of this profession, working abroad, have entered the internal market as it's too small.


„Our proposals are the following: under the existing scheme, we will be paid that ridiculous amount of 257 euros for two months after the quarantine. We are asking for it to be paid at least six months after the quarantine," Daubaras said.


In his words, a proposal has also been submitted to the government, prime minister and presidential office to restrict the activity of foreign guides in Lithuania for two years. Government institutions, however, are skeptical about these proposals, however, he said.


A total of around 4,500 guide certificates have been issued in Lithuania so far, Daubaras said, but it doesn’t mean all those people are working. He estimates that over 600 guides are actively working in Lithuania.






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