Head of Lithuanian tourism resigns amid fake photos scandal

The head of Lithuania's State Department of Tourism resigned on Friday following a scandal of fake photos representing the Baltic country.

Jurgita Kazlauskiene resigned after facing criticism from the Ministry of Economy which announced in a statement, "Unrelated photos had been used to promote Lithuania in social media."

Local media has found recently that the tourism department's new marketing campaign to promote the country's new slogan "Lithuania. Real is beautiful" used fake photos to illustrate Lithuania's landscape. Some of the photos have been purchased from websites Shutterstock or Flickr. Local news website 15min.lt first revealed it.

Some photos representing Lithuanian landscape have been taken in Slovakia and Finland.

A photo depicting snowy winter in the Curonian Spit, Lithuania's sand-dune spit and UNESCO World heritage site, was actually taken in Slovakia, Lithuanian journalists revealed.

Following her resignation, Kazlauskiene declined to comment to local media on details of the marketing campaign.

Kazlauskiene had been working as the head of the state department of tourism since 2015.

Lithuanian Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis ordered to conduct an investigation into a 140,000 euro public procurement.

"Who decided that promoting Lithuania with photos which have been taken abroad is cool. This is nothing more than just mere deception," Skvernelis posted on Facebook.

Representatives of the tourism department told local media that 700 photos to promote Lithuania have been ordered from subcontractors, only 350 of which were original. The aim of the images was to convey emotions, and the location was not important, claimed the department. Endit