Tourism Law in Europe

8 2.2. Tourism policy Undoubtedly, the tourism policy is the public policy and one of the public management areas. The importance of tourism sector and its impact to the economy of state and other areas of society, proves the necessity of establishing a kind of public policy to guide, direct, or even control the development of tourism, in order to minimise its negative impact and maximise its benefits 19 . The Lithuanian tourism policy is formed by establishing tourism policy objectives at both national and municipality levels. The way of policy formation process in tourism area may be divided into two periods: until establishment of new strategic management system in Lithuania – until 31 December 2020, and after – after 1 January 2021. Historically, the policy objectives in tourism area were formulated in three years programmes (programmes for periods 2000-2002; 2003-2006; 2007-2010; 2010-2013). The last programme was called National Programme for the Development of Tourism established the direction of tourism for six years, i.e. for the period as of 2014-2020. This programme was approved by the Government. The municipalities in the light of the goals of national strategy, should adopt their own plans taking into account the particularities of the municipality. However, several changes were made concerning the strategic management of the tourism area. First of all, in 2018 the Law on Tourism was changed and established that the competence of the strategic planning from the Government will be shifted to the Parliament 20 . Consequently, the Parliament should approve the long - term strategy. However, in 2020 the policy formation procedure in tourism area was revised alongside of overall rearrangement of the whole strategic management system in Lithuania. With the adoption of the new law – the Law on Strategic Management 21 - the system of strategic management (hierarchy and order of strategic management documents and the interplay between different levels of the management documents, etc.) was established. Therefore, the principle where the formulation of the national programmes as strategic planning 19 Tarafa Shuraiki. Tourism Policy; available i n http://instytut.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/r21-1.pdf. 20 The Law amending the Law on Tourism, adopted by the Law No XIII-1447 on 30 June 2018. 21 The Law on Strategic Management of the Republic of Lithuania.