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WEB RUS ENG D LTLudza City - - - - -Ludza District 3 3 3 - -Ventspils City 7 2 2 - -Ventspils 24 11 20 8 -DistrictCēsis City 7 2 4 1 -Cēsis District 23 7 10 3 1Jelgava City 4 2 3 1 -Jelgava 6 2 5 1 -District77 29 47 14 1• English (ENG) – used in 47 tourist accommodationhome pages (majority in Ventspils District – on 20home pages, Jūrkalne Parish home pagewww.jurkalne.lv, information on touristaccommodations in the territory of the parish isoffered both in Latvian and in English, which ishighly positively evaluated.• Russian (RUS) – used in 29 tourist accommodationhome pages (majority in Ventspils District – on 11tourist accommodation home pages (althoughmostly on accommodations registered in the portalwww.viss.lv).• In German (D) – on 14 tourist accommodation homepages (again the majority in Ventspils District – 8tourist accommodation home pages, thanks to theinformation in the portal www.viss.lv.• In Lithuanian (LT) – only one tourist accommodationhome page in Cēsis District, the hotel ”Tigra” inPriekuļi Parish offers information in this language.According to the data of Ventspils TIO, in 2005 16%of lodgers in Ventspils District were travellers fromLithuania, 13 % from Germany, 12 % - from Estonia(their number of overnights stays in Ventspils Citycompared to 2004 has increased by 80 %, as Estoniansmore and more actively use the services of the ferry lineSLK Ferries, opened in May, 2005, from Mintu Port,Saaremaa to Ventspils).A positive example in the sphere of marketing is thenew Hotel Tigra in Cēsis District (opened in December,2004). Its location near Cēsis City (6 km) and activecooperation with one of the biggest winter sports centresin Latvia, “Žagarkalns”, as well as successful work ofmarketing specialists. In 2005, it was targeted at attractionof Lithuanian travellers and has given positive in theoperation of the hotel. In 2005, 21 % of lodgers werefrom Lithuania (Magone 2006).Therefore, owners of tourism accommodationsshould pay more attention to publishing information inthose foreign languages where most of the travellerscome from to the given area. Addressing tourists intheir native language gives maximum effect, as thetourist feels most welcome in such a case.In general, the best results from the exploreddistricts regarding home page availability andaccessibility in tourist accommodations are inVentspils District tourist accommodations. In VentspilsDistrict 12 tourist accommodations have their ownpermanent home pages, 12 tourist accommodations areavailable in the portal www.viss.lv (or the so called“rented home pages”), where the home page address iscomposed of the name of the accommodations +viss.lv, for example, www.kivites.viss.lv. There aresome tourist accommodations that consider informationon the Internet as very important and indicate severalhome page addresses, for example, the guest-house“Imantas” in Jūrkalne Parish – it gives 2 home pageaddresses where to find information on it:www.jurkalne.lv, www.imantas.viss.lv, or for example,the guest-house “Mežmalas” has its own home pagewww.mezmalas.com , but there is info also inwww.mezmalas.viss.lv.However, as noted by Ventspils TIO ManagerG.Seilis, entrepreneurs still have not enoughunderstanding of the role of the Internet in marketing,although Ventspils TIO has organised severalworkshops on these themes to entrepreneurs. A greatpart of the owners of tourist accommodations considerthat there is enough with the current information(which mostly are telephone numbers and location) thatVentspils TIO publishes in its home pagewww.tourism.ventspils.lv (Seilis 2006).Representative of Jelgava District TIOV.Kinderēviča pointed out in the interview that inJelgava District the prevailing type is small tourismenterprises where tourism is only a secondary directionin economic activities and a minor source of profit.Therefore, they consider the role of the Internet asinsignificant in their business, but in future theentrepreneurs forecast some development (Kinderēviča2006).Another essential question is: what are theobjectives of a home page? Most of the explored homepages involve simple information about theaccommodations (location, services, prices, photos,reservation contacts, etc). However, the home page hasvery many advantages and the most important of themis on-line reservation, very widely used in Europe aspart of effective Internet distribution and marketingstrategy. The tourist accommodations should be awarethat a home page is the “main entrance” for creatingAnnual Proceedings of Vidzeme University College “ICTE in Regional Development”, 200698