Tourism Law in Europe

26 is given to the development of business tourism, are Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda and the resorts of the Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian Tourism Development Programme 2014–2020). Ecological tourism – tourism in an environmentally friendly way and providing opportunities for socio-economic activities for local people. It includes cognitive, active (cycling, water, walking and other) tourism and rural tourism services. The Law on Protected Areas of the Republic of Lithuania and its implementing legal acts use the concept of cognitive tourism. The basis of the development of ecological tourism in the Republic of Lithuania is the naturalness of the landscape and the abundance of natural values, a unique coastal region, and the development of a cognitive tourism infrastructure system in national and regional parks. The territories with the highest tourism potential, where priority is given to the development of ecological tourism, are planned in the following 5 regions of Lithuania: the Seaside, Dzūkija, Eastern Aukštaitija, Samogitian Highlands and the Lower Nemunas (Lithuanian Tourism Development Programme 2014–2020) 5 . The Law on Tourism of the Republic of Lithuania (Article 2) distinguishes a rural tourism service – it is a paid accommodation service for tourists in a rural residential area or city with a population of no more than 3000, when the conditions for catering, recreation, entertainment or event organisation are met. There are 10 main specialisations of rural tourism homesteads: quiet recreation, cognitive recreation, active leisure, family recreation, culinary heritage, nature-friendly homestead, health homestead, family holidays, business events, agrotourism homesteads (Lithuanian Tourism Development Programme 2014– 2020). In 2017, 668 rural tourism homesteads received tourists and 668 rural tourism homesteads offered accommodation services, or 7 homesteads (1.1%) more than in 2016. The number of places in rural tourism homesteads increased by 3% and was 15.0 thousand. The largest number of rural tourism homesteads was in Trakai, Molėtai, Zarasai, Lazdijai, Ignalina and Utena district municipalities. Accommodation services were provided in 43 rural tourism 5 Information about ecological tourism in Lithuania and places of interest, available in: https://www.lithuania.travel/en/category/ecotourism; https://www.lithuania.travel/en/category/nature.