Riga was certainly "packed" this summer as Elizabeth Celms points out (TBT #428), but it is quite wrong to think this is the situation for the other nine months of the year.
Occupancy rates in hotels have been falling since mid-September, as they do every autumn, and will only start to recover next May. This week I was in Rundale with only one other group from abroad. My tourists have been able to get into the lift at St Peter's without queuing, both surely worrying signs for the travel business.
I am not concerned at missing the odd booking in mid-summer when neither airlines nor hotels want our business. Our collective problem is to make Riga a year-round destination and not just a seasonal one. Steve Roman's article in the same issue shows how Tallinn is waking up to a similar problem. Riga hotels will need to do likewise, as will the museums and other attractions.
Neil Taylor
Director, Regent Holidays
