In April 2017 Vilnius City joined the Project „The World Heritage Journeys in the European Union“ (Leaflet). The Project is funded by a grant from the European Commission (Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs) to UNESCO. The objective is to create unique cultural heritage experiences through the development of thematic transEuropean itineraries. By including iconic and lesser known World Heritage sites, these routes will enable people to see Europe’s World Heritage sites from a new and exciting perspective. The project will leverage World Heritage branding and raise awareness of World Heritage sites in the European Union to increase the number of (international) visitors, encourage dispersal of visitors into less visted areas; also to attract key source markets to Europe such as China and the U.S.
The World Heritage Journeys will centre on the following four themes: Ancient Europe, Royal Europe, Romantic Europe and Underground Europe. Vilnius City was invited to be a part of thematic route „Romantic Europe“. Other European world heritage sites for the route are from Cyprus, Belgium, Check Republic, Germany, France and Austria.
A rich mobile-friendly website was produced by National Geographic, providing an important promotional tool for the World Heritage Journeys:
The 2nd workshop “World Heritage Journeys of Europe. Romantic Europe” took place on October 1-3, 2017 in Vilnius. It was organized by UNESCO World Heritage Centre in collaboration with the Vilnius Historic Centre World Heritage site and the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Lithuania; supported by the European Union. Other Lithuanian partners are Lithuanian MInistry of Economy and municipal public enterprise „GO Vilnius“.