Agnese Sturmane, Commercial Counsellor of the Embassy of the Republic of Latvia in China: Expecting Tourists to Return to Picturesque Riga After the Pandemic

The year 2020 witnessed a sudden outbreak of COVID-19 which has swept around the world. Many countries introduced travelling restriction policies, leading to a standstill of the cross-border travel market. At this critical moment, the World Tourism Cities Federation (WTCF), as the world's first international tourism organization focusing on cities, strives to facilitate the exchanges and communications with its members and innovate in promotion forms by utilizing the mode integrating "online" form with "offline" form, thus building a new platform for its city members.

Recently, Agnese Sturmane, Commercial Counsellor of the Embassy of the Republic of Latvia in China received an interview from WTCF. Agnese shared the measures and experience of Latvia in combating COVID-19 and introduced the rich history and unique artistic atmosphere of Riga, a member city of WTCF. She hoped that, by further leveraging the power of the international tourism organizations, Latvia can strengthen exchanges and mutual understanding with other countries, so as to promote the recovery of the global travel industry after the pandemic.

Agnese Sturmane, Commercial Counsellor of the Embassy of the Republic of Latvia in China

WTCF: The whole world this year is affected by the pandemic severely. What measures have Latvia taken to combat the pandemic and reduce the industry losses?

Agnese Sturmane: In the first pandemic wave in Europe during the spring, Latvia didn't suffer that badly, because we were very efficient with closing our borders and established a national emergency situation. So, it's actually very safe to travel back to Latvia until October and November of 2020. According to the OECD, we actually rank No.2 around the world as in how we are dealing with our pandemic. However, unfortunately, as the second wave was coming in Europe, Latvia started to experience the first wave. Since November 9, 2020, we've also established the second national emergency situation, which means most of the public places like entertainment venues, restaurants will be closed. Restaurants will be only serving take-away food. Only the 1st till 6th grades students can attend school. Other university and high school students are learning from home. People are encouraged to work from home. The government has enforced different sorts of supportive systems for companies. For example, different export vouchers or innovation vouchers. We're looking more into helping with different infrastructure projects to boost our economy.

WTCF: Riga is WTCF's city member. Are there places worth visiting in Riga? And are there unique culture and customs that worth visiting in the city?

Agnese Sturmane: Riga is considered as the cultural, art and tourism center of the Baltic states. And it's the largest city in the Baltic states with more than 800-year history. You can see various different architecture there in different times that the city has experienced. So, first thing that you definitely have to visit is the Riga Old Town. It's the most historical part of the city, and it has a lot of iconic historical monuments like, for example, St Peter's Church and St John’s Church. You can also see the city from above the churches. It's very beautiful.

First of all, stroll through the Old Town, try some local food. And then, not far away from the Old Town, around 15 or 20-minute walk, you can also see absolutely different style of architecture, which are called art nouveau style architecture, originating from the beginning of the 20th century. What's unique with these architectures is that they have a lot of ornaments on the buildings. Each building is like a masterpiece of art. Riga can be considered to be like the Mecca of this sort of architecture.

Then there are also lots of museums, including art museums, history museums and occupation museums. One of my favourite museums is the Open Air Museum. It's located in a forest, around 30-minute drive away from the center of Riga. You can experience different sorts of buildings where people used to live back in the day in the rural Latvia. It's particularly wonderful to go there in the weekend, because they have different art and craft fairs and markets. You can purchase local goods, try local beverages and food. If you're lucky to visit during the national holiday, you can also celebrate it with local Latvians. In general, Riga is very attractive. Actually, for most of my Chinese friends who have been to Latvia, our country is one of their favourite places.

WTCF: Many countries are affected by the pandemic severely in this year, especially the tourism industry. So, what are your suggestions on how to overcome the pandemic?

Agnese Sturmane: I believe that every crisis is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, there's a lot of threats and industry struggling; while on the other hand, there are also opportunities. For companies in tourism industry, they should firstly ensure the safety of travelers. There are a lot of companies that are making it safer to travel like, for example, offering solutions to flying more safely like offering some walls between passengers. Another thing what our tourism industry can do is go more digital, and go more online. And that's also thing I can see from some destinations that are doing. They're offering virtual tours or virtual experiences to travelers to get more familiar with the places, preparing for the return of tourists after the pandemic. It can also promote later tourism when it will be physically possible again to travel.

WTCF: WTCF is also holding the virtual meetings these days, like WTM on November 11, 2020. What do you think of virtual meetings?

Agnese Sturmane: In some way, virtual meetings are conducive to the development in the future. We have been used to traveling so much to attend conferences. Nowadays, we're understanding that we can actually save a lot of time and be more efficient through online platforms. It will definitely change the way we live, but I hope that the tourism industry will regain its popularity in a few years again.

WTCF: At this critical moment, what do you hope an international organization like WTCF can do for the recovery of the global travel industry?

Agnese Sturmane: I think the key step is to share the knowledge and effective experience of how other communities, cities or countries on how they are dealing with this situation, so that other cities can also implement some of the good strategies and good experiences that are being used already. For example, we can visit museums online, enjoy concerts online and establish online education platforms and knowledge sharing platforms.