Daiva has been working in tourism all her life. After she lost her job, she started organising exclusive trips in the Baltic States and former Soviet countries. The woman jokes that in order to be a good tour guide, a higher education diploma and a home library will not suffice – one also needs to feel a strong wish to share what they know with the world. When telling about the changes that caused her business to be born, Daiva, a tour guide well-known in the entire country, is open: “I did not plunge into a new field. I just changed activities. I left an administrative job, but creativity remained with me.”
Speaking about the major changes in business, Daiva says: “The key is to take the responsibility. On the other hand, you are just a human and it is natural to search for scapegoats. In business, the winners are those who assume the responsibility”. Daiva has not had to rue her choice to build a business in the field she knows so well. Just one year later, the woman was presented with an important and honourable award of the State Department of Tourism under the Ministry of Economy “For special merits to Lithuanian tourism”. Regardless of people who believe that it is sufficient to have a car and be able to tell stories if you want to organise trips, Daiva is certain that everything goes differently, when a guide tour is accepted as a welcome member of the community. “Sometimes this might resemble a vanity fair, but indeed it is a value – when you come and you are welcome. The way people accept you depends on their appreciation of you. I am an idea generator and innovator; this is what they pay me for”, smiles Daiva.