VILNIUS - A Frenchman who was discivered conducting guided tours around Vilnius without the necessary qualifying certificate has been admonished by the Lithuanian capital's municipal authorities.
It was the only violation among the 16 tour guides who giving tours in the Polish, German, Italian, Spanish, French and Russian languages who were inspected last week.
The inspectors' report stresses that there is a lack of tour guides in Vilnius during the tourist season able to give guided tours in foreign languages. To provide foreign tourists with a suitable service, travel agencies are hiring both fully-qualified professional guides and others possessing interpreters' permits but not necessarily the additional tour guide permits issued by the State Tourism Department. The French tour guide possessed a business permit only, which does not entitle its holder to work as a guide.
The inspection was the third of its kind this year, but the first to discover any violations of the strict tour guide rules operating in Vilnius.
