Lithuanian Tourism Department chief resigning

  • 2017-02-10
  • BNS/TBT Staff

VILNIUS – Jurgita Kazlauskiene, director of the Lithuanian State Tourism Department, has announced plans to resign after meeting with Economy Minister Mindaugas Sinkevicius on Friday.

"I have decided to step down as the head of the State Tourism Department," Kazlauskiene told journalists.

Her step fame following media reports about companies presenting Lithuania to foreigners using photographs that have nothing to do with Lithuania.

15min.lt news portal said on Thursday that authors of the Lithuania. Real is the Beautiful page on Facebook use inexpensive illustrations from Shutterstock and Flickr portals.

The last year's tender for marketing on social networks, advertisement and content marketing services was won by a consortium of Open Agency and Turinio Rinkodara agencies for 140,000 euros.

A spokeswoman for the Tourism Department told the portal that Turinio Rinkodara had not violated conditions of the contract, as the department needed 700 photographs, including merely 350 original ones. She noted that the photographs were intended to communicate a motion, therefore, the location was insignificant.

Kazlauskiene has been heading the Tourism Department since January of 2015.