Baltic Blues Travel at World Travel Market in London
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Good news from the Baltics: life is returning to normal
While media is overwhelmed with news about the Coronavirus from many countries, you will not hear much about the Baltics. And it is precisely the case when no news is good news!
After starting the lockdown in advance Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia managed to keep the numbers low from the beginning. From the first day the governments managed to establish strict discipline and introduce safety rules that kept this part of Europe relatively safe and quiet.
Thus, by today (the 4th of May) less than 4000 of total cases have been registered in all 3 Baltic States.
Exit from the lockdown
With only a few cases and basically no deaths life is slowly getting back to normal here.
In Lithuania most of shops, street cafes, hairdressers, libraries and museums are beginning to reopen as part of a staged exit from lockdown. The mayor of Vilnius wants the city to open up and keep it alive. Hence, the plan is to turn Vilnius Old Town into a vast open-air cafe by giving over much of its public space to bars and restaurants for free so they can put their tables outdoors and still observe physical distancing rules. Recently the most popular post in social media is about capturing photos of happy Lithuanians enjoying spring sunshine with a drink outside.
Meanwhile in the Latvian capital softer quarantine restrictions with open cafes and bars have been kept from the beginning if the owners could provide a two-metre distance between clients. In Riga people are permitted to walk around the streets, use public transport and travel to other cities, if the social distancing requirements are kept.
Estonia, the smallest of the Baltic States had slightly more cases from the beginning that imposed the Estonian government to follow the policy “the more the better” and keep tight safety regulations till the 17th of May.
Skies start to open up
Another good news comes from the airlines. AirBaltic, the major Baltic air carrier is getting ready to fly to the major European cities as early as the 13th of May.
As soon other European countries will be open, the travellers from Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Frankfurt, Barcelona, Paris and other major European cities will be able to fly to Riga again.
Meanwhile for Lithuania the first country to open for the flight connection will be Germany. Lufthansa expressed an interest in restarting regular flights to Vilnius and first flight to Frankfurt is scheduled already on the 10th of May.
Preliminarily reopening of the borders between the Baltic States is scheduled in the middle of May.
It is definitely a good sign and the travel industry is looking forward for our dear customers to come back.
Charity project of Baltic Blues Travel: 4 years of success
It‘s the fourth year in row that the tour operator Baltic blues Travel is launching to launch the annual project Beaver Ben Camps and addressing issues related to the negative impact of the travel industry on the planet. We decided to do this from the perspective that touches most of us – children, poverty and environmental protection.
The story started in 2015 when Marius and Olga, the owners of Baltic Blues, became parents. It is a truly transformational moment in every person’s life that encourages us to re-evaluate our values and motivates us to become a better person. Thus, becoming happy parents made them think about other children who are raised without the love of parents and suffer from poor living conditions. That’s why they decided to do something that any travel company can do the best — arranging awesome summer holidays for them.
“It’s something that they would never be able to experience without us!”
The first summer camps started in 2016 and now, four years later, we are proud of organizing 7 summer camps that have made 122 kids happy!
Most of these children came from orphanages and help centers for socially disadvantaged children: those living in poverty, having problems with education or social integration, and simply those who have never left their hometowns and never travelled in their lives.
Moreover, environmental issues are the other cornerstones of the project. The Beaver Ben camps take place in one of the most beautiful and fragile natural parks of Lithuania – the Curonian Spit, which lies between the Curonian Lagoon and the Baltic Sea. This unique place is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is a live natural museum where long chains of white sand dunes, beaches and forests are home to a large number of rare birds and mammals.
This exceptional location is chosen for an important reason. The daily impact of tourism is a negative challenge to this natural park. Therefore, Baltic Blues feels responsibility to come up with an initiative to protect the beauty of the Curonian Spit. We do it by involving children and Baltic Blues staff into various activities, such as cleaning the shores of the Baltic Sea. In each camp, the children spend about 30 hours collecting waste in the beach and dunes.
In addition, at every camp the children spend about 20 hours learning about environmental protection. Professional youth workers prepare an active program with various workshops and discussions that aim to raise their awareness about ecological problems.
Beyond that, special attention is given to strengthening the social skills of the children. We noticed that their background makes them disadvantaged when it comes to social integration, dealing with negative emotions and self-control. Therefore, social workers are addressing this issue by involving them into team-building activities, group discussions and counseling.
Last but not the least, a part of the daily program is recreation and entertainment. And here we do our best to offer many exciting activities and to help children simply relax and enjoy their time by the sea. Trekking, excursions, visits to the museums, safari trips, sailing, sports and beach time – everything that would make a little person happy!
Beaver Ben Camps 2019:
Every year we learn from the experience and try to become better at what we do!
In 2019, Baltic Blues Travel organized two camps for 35 kids:
June 10-20: 16 children from the charity fund “Your opportunity” in Krekenave
June 20-30: 19 children from the charity fund “The light of hope” in Birzai
Their daily program was focused on four main blocks:
Environmental protection: this year children spent 60 hours cleaning the seashores and collecting 150 kg of waste!
Environmental education: kids took part in more than 20 hours of workshops and discussions – i.e. the danger of plastic, the role of birds, insects and mammals in the ecosystem, animals living in zoos and in the wild.
Building social competences: more than 20 hours were dedicated to team-building activities and discussions where kids could learn about positive and negative social behaviors, friendship and support, dealing with negative emotions, strengthening feed-back skills, etc.
Recreation: 30 hours of fun and exciting activities like trekking in dunes and forest, sailing along the coast, an excursion-safari around the Curonian Spit, a trip to the Hill of Witches, an excursion to the Sea Museum, a visit of the Thomas Mann museum, a big bubbles game, and of course swimming and sports games.
This charity project would not be possible without the help of our partners who contributed to Beaver Ben Camps 2019:
* KONTIKI, Switzerland
* Lauvas Turs, Latvia
* Ollex, Lithuania
* Kautra, Lithuania
* Mare Travel, Lithuania
The children and Baltic Blues would like to say a SPECIAL THANK YOU to them and invite other socially and environmentally responsible companies to join Beaver Ben camps next year!
We are happy to share the exciting activities, happy moments of the Beaver Ben Camps 2019 in our ANNUAL REPORT:
Our MICE team went to IBTM in Barcelona
Participation in the key tourism events has a high priority for our company. This November was time for IBTM in Barcelona – the leading global event for the meetings and events industry.
Our MICE team presented a variety of unique event scenarios and incentive in our 5 destinations – Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
Moreover, we were happy to share what is new in the meeting industry in our destinations:
- Riga could be a venue for your next event: the largest in the Baltic States and ultra-modern convention center ATTA has been opened there recently. It can host large events with up to 3500 pax and offer you innovative services of a state-of-art convention center.
- Sustainability and Baltic Blues: we are going hand in hand with a concept of sustainability and invest in becoming a responsible travel company. Environmental charity projects, responsible travel behavior and operations, our staff participation in environmental protection – meet us to find out how to bring a concept of suitability to your business event with us.
It is the leading global travel show and a key event for tourism professionals.