Countryside tourism: environment, recreational service, and service culture

Objective of the analysis: environment, recreational services, and service culture. Aim of the analysis: to assess the environment, recreational services and support cultural coherence in farmsteads located in Suwalki region between the Rail Baltica and Via Baltica. Goals of the analysis: 1. Reveal the theoretical coherence of the environment, service culture, and recreational services. 2. Analyze country side environment, culture, and recreational services. 3. Evaluate the environment, culture, and recreational services of the targeted homesteads and propose possible ways for the countryside tourism industry expansion. Conclusions: environment, recreational services, and service culture are three interlinked elements which all have crucial effect on the service business. The service business is affected both by internal, i.e. micro, as well as external, i.e. macro, factors, which determine the overall usage of recreational services. In order to ensure the level of usage of the services it is necessary to maintain high standard service quality, which in the general service business is entrenched in high level customer service which is based on general service culture. In Lithuania there is a favorable situation for rural tourism business development for its rich, natural and cultural environment. Lithuanian farmsteads usually organizes traditional active leisure. However, rural tourism development in the country hinders economic-political situation in the country which has an impact on the price growth of leisure services , for this reason, rural tourism entrepreneurs refuse to develop and deploy new services, because the investments would set prices higher for services, and the return of investments would be long-term and ineffective. In order to ensure the use of the services homestead owners are focusing on service culture. The analysis of environment, recreational services, and service culture of the homesteads set in between Rail Baltic railway and Via Baltic route, have revealed the following: • Considering the external factors owners of the homesteads evaluated the establishment of Euro currency as the key economic reason which determined the reduction of their service demand based on the general increase of the service costs. When evaluating internal factors that have impact on their activities, proprietors named competition as the most influential factor. • All of the recreational services that are offered in the homesteads fall within the category of active or passive activities in summer season. The analysis confirmed that the problem of single season activities have major impact. In order to reduce dependency on single season in the future, it is planned to establish innovative services for winter season. • When evaluating the customer service culture, all proprietors uniformly agreed that this is a key factor when willing to ensure returning customers as well as attracting new ones. In the view of the homestead owners the most important factors ensuring service culture are the following: finding out the needs of customers and maximising their satisfaction, pleasant communication, following etiquette rules, suitable dress for occasions, and effective problem and conflict resolution. Proposals for rural tourism farmsteads owners: 1. raise awareness about the services offered to passing tourists through Rail Baltica and Via Baltica highways; 2. enhancing the recreational services provided; 3. modernization of rural tourism environment; 4. improving the official websites. Proposals for the EU Structural Funds: 1. propose the innovative service development projects that would allow the creation of innovative services; 2. propose tourism development projects to rural tourism owners