Meet a Local Project Rules

About the project

• Meet a Local is a volunteer tourism project aimed at Vilnius city guests who would really like to get to know the city and spend a few hours with an actual local exploring Vilnius.
• Go Vilnius, the city’s official tourism and business development agency, is the project organiser.

Project scope

• The project takes place year round, any day of the week.
• It is limited to only the territory of the City of Vilnius. However, with the mutual consent of both parties (volunteer and tourist), other cities can be visited as well.

Project participants

• The project is open to all guests in Vilnius 18 years of age or older.
• Anyone younger than 18 must be accompanied by an adult.

Project volunteers

• Only individuals 18 years of age or older can be volunteers.
• Volunteers are not required to be professional guides.
• Volunteers join the project after a motivational interview with the project’s curators.

Organising meetings

• The project is implemented via an automated system where communication is done by email.
• Tourists who wish to participate in the project are required to fill out a questionnaire on the Go Vilnius website, providing their contact information and additional preferences for meeting with a volunteer.
• Having filled out the questionnaire, they will receive a list of volunteers by email, filtered according to the preferences they indicated in the questionnaire. The system’s filters, which select volunteers, include their age range, languages are spoken, and the meeting date and time. It can take up to three hours to send a final list.
• The tourist has 21 hours to select a volunteer from the provided list. If they do not make a selection within 21 hours, the meeting request is automatically cancelled.
• Having selected a volunteer for a meeting, the system automatically sends out a confirmation email to both parties with the final meeting date/time and the contact information for the tourist and volunteer.
• Volunteers have the opportunity to offer a different meeting time if the one submitted by the tourist doesn’t work for them. If the alternative meeting time is suitable, the tourist can confirm the meeting at this other time.
• In the event that no volunteer is available for the time indicated by the tourist, they will receive an email with the option to select a different age range for the volunteer. Once the age range has been adjusted, filtering a new list of volunteers can take up to three hours.
• After the meeting has taken place, the tourist will be sent a meeting evaluation form by email.
• If for some reason one of the parties is no longer able to participate in the meeting, they must inform the other party via the provided contact information.

Additional terms and conditions

• Registration is held only for the next (following) day.
• Meetings can be planned for any day of the week from 8 AM to 8 PM.
• The meeting point for both parties is always the Vilnius Tourism Information Centre at Pilies g. 2, unless they agree on an alternative meeting point beforehand.
• This is a non-profit project and participation is free of charge.

Data processing

• The information provided in the questionnaire is used in the volunteer selection process to identify the volunteer best suited for a particular meeting.
• The contact information provided in the questionnaire is sent to the volunteer who was selected for the meeting.
• The tourist, in filling out the questionnaire, agrees that their information will be used to help filter volunteers, while their contact information will be given to the selected volunteer before the meeting.
• The tourist, in filling out the questionnaire, agrees to receive a meeting evaluation form after the meeting has taken place.

If you notice system failures or have any further questions, please contact the Tourist Information Centre (Pilies g. 2): +370 5 262 9660, [email protected]