Bistrampolio Manor, Lithuania

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Key influences on the visitor experience at Bistrampolio Manor

The Bistrampolio Manor is conveniently located approximately 17 km away from the fifth largest town of Lithuania, Panevezys. As the infrastructure is quite good between Panevezys and Bistrampolio the trip can be completed in approximately 20 minutes. Furthermore the capitol, Vilnius, lies approximately 135 km away, a distance that can be travelled in less than one and a half hour due to the part of the Via Baltica highway that stretches from Panevezys to Vilnius. The relatively short distance to these large cities makes the Bistrampolio Manor a destination for daytrips from the towns. As mentioned above the manor has undergone extensive restorations and therefore today appears as a well maintained example of architecture and park design from the mid-nineteenth century.

Photo: Friends of Bistrampolio Manor

The weather in and around Penevezy is transitional between maritime and continental. The climate is generally wet with rainfall varying from 100 mm to 200 mm every month. The winters in the area are cold with an average temperature just below freezing. Summers are on the other hand warm with average temperatures in June to August above 20 degrees.

Visitor Characteristics of Bistrampolio Manor cliental

This project group joined after the questionnaires from 2011 had been collected and therefore no questionnaires exist from this year. However, from 2012 432 questionnaires have been collected and processed and it is from this data that the visitor characteristics are drawn. As with other questionnaire data in this study the low response rate makes it impossible to give definitive conclusions but the number still enables indications of the characteristics of the visitors to be made.

The visitors at Bistrampolio consist of 84 pct. local tourists that are on daytrips away from their homes. The remaining 16 pct. of visitors consist of people that are either taking a daytrip from their holiday destination or people who visit the manor as part of an organised tour. As explained below the relatively small proportion of foreign tourist might represent a potential for a growing number of visitors.

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When visiting the manor 81 pct. of the tourists asked in 2012 answered that they spent two hours or more at the manor. This means that the Bistrampolio manor is well suited for day trips which should enable the manor to attract people from as far away as Vilnius. The visitors generally employ two means of transport to get to the manor. 55 pct. arrive at the destination by car while 44 pct. travel to the manor by tour busses. Visitors at the destination have in 66 pct. of the cases visited the attraction before, which is a very high number. At the same time 62 pct. declare that they intend to visit the manor again in the future. The visitors that bring children to the manor on average bring 2.4 children.

Strategic Recommendations for Bistrampolio manor

As mentioned above 84 pct. of the visitors at Bistrampolio manor are local tourists. The fact that 81 pct. of the visitors spend more than two hours at the manor means that this extended period of time that people spend at the attraction makes it possible to attract people from farther away as the time they spend on transport correspond with the time they are able to spent at the attraction. Therefore there are a potential in attracting people from cities such as Panevezys and Vilnius. In order to attract people from these places both marketing and product development is needed.

Recommendations for product development: As mentioned above the average number of children that visitors bring to the manor is 2.4. At the same time the child friendliness was one of the aspects in which the manor scored worst. When asked about the ‘child friendliness’ the average answer is that it is neither satisfying nor dissatisfying. By offering educational games or activities for children the satisfactory will most likely go up. Such educational games could be to create a number of questions regarding different parts of the castle and the adjacent surroundings and hand them out to the children.

Recommendations for marketing development: The manor web page focuses on the accommodation as well as conference activities available at the location and offers a booking service. However it fails to describe the manor as a tourist attraction separate from its function as a hotel. Especially the museums and the sculpture park that have been constructed at the sight are great opportunities to attract people from Panevezys and Vilnius. As the webpage is especially important as a source of information for foreign tourist the web page needs to be developed as to account for the offers that the attraction have to offer. Furthermore, it is important that a development is not only made on the Lithuanian site but also on the foreign language sites.

Recommendations for development of Baltic Sea Region heritage

Through the reconstruction, renovation, the reparations and the creation of the park Bistrampolio manor is a unique heritage product for tourists. When the webpage has been improved and marketing efforts intensified, the visibility of the manor will be improved and so will the Lithuanian heritage. If the manor is marketed as an attraction with heritage offers, it is important that the visitors receive an experience that matches these expectations. It is therefore important that there are available and interesting materials for the tourists to read and learn from.

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