Association of recreational boating industry "LitBOAT" founded in Lithuania

LitBOAT - recreational boating industry association president Karolis Valenta participates in the international boat exhibition in Düsseldorf (boot Düsseldorf)

Creation of "LitBOAT" the Lithuanian federation of nautical industries. The Lithuanian nautical industries’ organisation has just been established, aiming to develop the nautical sector and nautical tourism in Lithuania, water sports, nautical recreation, shipyards, boat sales and river tourism. The organisation strives to be a player on the Lithuanian market for nautical tourism, sports, leisure, ship building and yachting development. The founding members are "Alpetas“, "Amber Route“, "Devalta“. According to Karolis Valentas, president of "LitBOAT", the main mission of the organisation it to encourage the public to discover and enjoy boating. Boating for me isn’t just a hobby, it’s also a way of life. “I’m delighted to become the president of the organisation to contribute to the development and improvement of nautical infrastructures in Lithuania, to strengthen the growth of this sector that covers sports, leisure, boat building and sales, to take part in the development of river tourism, and furthermore, to pass on our passion for boating”, stated K. Valenta. LitBOAT has also joined the European Boating Industry, which brings together the national boating industry organizations in Europe.

The main goal of EBI is to represent and develop a sustainable boating and water tourism industry in Europe. We are convinced that joining EBI will help us bring together all the players in the Lithuanian yachting industry to develop infrastructures, increase the number of leisure boats in the country and provide the best level of services to all boat owners and boaters.” says K. Valenta. Today, Europe has at least 6 million boats, 36 million regular boaters and more than 6,000 inland and coastal marinas. The European nautical sector comprises 32,000 companies employing over 280,000 people.

According to the president of "LitBOAT", the boating sector is extremely important, as it not only contributes significantly to the promotion of tourism and local economy, but also to the European balance of trade, as Europe is a major exporter of products designed for leisure boating markets worldwide.