Saturday, February 5, 2011

Lithuania goes on Facebook

Lithuanian State Department of Tourism a few days ago announced that Lithuania is going to attracts tourists by getting on social network websites like Facebook. The Department now is looking for someone to create and implement the strategy of Lithuania’s introduction to social networking websites. The goal of this project is creating an attractive image of Lithuania.
Sounds nice, but… I don’t understand something… The representative of Lithuanian State Department of Tourism says that it is first time when Lithuania will be trying to attract tourists by getting on social networking websites. I did a little research on Facebook of my own. And I found page “Discover Lithuania” with more than 2000 fans. The contact information on this Facebook profile points to the website about tourism run by Lithuanian State Department of Tourism.
I am confused… Why do they organize some contest to do something for the first time that is already done..? 2000 fans is not bad, so maybe just continue with what you started, but no, they have to invent something new..
Maybe I just don’t get the idea of this project… Maybe the article about this contest gave misleading information… But it was written that Lithuania will go on Facebook FOR THE FIRST TIME! Is it possible that representative of Lithuanian State Department of Tourism does not know that Lithuania is already on Facebook..?
I just hope that this contest is not organized to give a job for someone’s friend… The winner of the contest will get 400,000 Litas (116,000 euros or 160,000 USD) for creating and implementing his strategy. Not too much for creating and administrating Facebook and Twitter profiles for a year..?
I should give you some background for understanding why I am worried. In Lithuania is very common situation when somebody gets money from government to do some projects and then money is not managed for the best interest of Lithuania. Someone gets what we call “otkatas” – it means that part of money goes for private persons who are related to organizing and implementing a project. But I hope this won’t be the case this time…
I remember a few years ago a contest for creating attractive image of our country was announced . The winner suggested presenting us as “brave Lithuania”. For us, Lithuanians, it was like a joke. Why “brave”? What Lithuania has to do with courage??? So this image was not accepted by our nation. But millions were wasted…
And a few months ago I watched a play in a theatre called “Brave Country”. It was a good parody of this idea…

No comments: