GUIDED TOURS IN LVIV
At time of writing there are less than 60 meaningful guided tours in Lviv that can be booked online, and 25 of those are ours, curated by In Lviv Tours.
In cities such as Rome, our sister destination, there are more than 50,000 bookable tours and activities online. Most of them are versions of the same tour loaded to different platforms. The running total in autumn, 2025 is 50k and counting. Let's expect 100k by 2035.
That market is dominated by corporate resellers (OTAs), namely GetYourGuide, Viator (Tripadvisor), Headout, Klook and many more.
It's important for travellers to understand that resellers take 30% commission per booking from local operators who list tours on these marketplace websites because they don't have the SEO / digital marketing skills to rank their own website, if they even have a website. Welcome to the tyranny of 21st. century tourism.
They put themselves at risk of shameless brandjacking, fickle chargebackers, customer support in third world backwaters where English language is at a premium, and ever increasing commission rates.
The reliance of tour operators on OTA bookings damages localized tourism infrastructure and will ultimately destroy it. OTA is the initialism of Online Travel Agency.
Our tours are only bookable here on our website, nowhere else. Always book direct on local tour operator websites such as this one, instead of clicking on the first sponsored listing you see. That's called absent-minded browsing and it's how 99% of people use the internet.
If you want to scroll through page after page of tours on a reseller website, go ahead. It does less than nothing to support local tour operators, everything to fill corporate coffers. Think, before you book.
Are most guided tours in Lviv listed on OTAs? Not yet. Time-served Ukrainian tour operators focus on direct bookings, they rent a physical office and have been around since forever. Word-of-mouth business is still very important for them.
Independent guides in Lviv, however, many of whom are brand new and have an eye for the main chance, are loading their tours to OTAs. They'll learn the hard way.
Everyone who organizes or leads guided tours in Lviv has a responsibility to ensure that Lviv tourism services, be they official or independent, benefit the city.
In every case, that means developing a web presence that informs and educates travellers about Lviv.
Offering tours that financially support our local traders, and publishing content about Lviv that presents the city in such a way as to attract the right kind of traveller matters most.
For example, Lviv tour websites that offer stag parties, hen nights, group pub crawls and entertainment tours should be shut down immediately. Lviv does not need nor want such people. We offer beer tours but they are private, not set up for big groups as that was never our intention.
Some of the best guided tours in Lviv are all about food and drink. Ukrainian, Georgian, Hungarian, Armenian, Polish, Galician. Italian street food and savoury Soviet tastings. A food tour in Lviv should be high on your wish list.
A new Lviv food tasting tour about Borscht, only Borscht, nothing else, is something we are giving serious consideration to. With winter upon us, a new beer and soup tour is also on our radar.
Thinking about "Bellyful of Borscht" and an evening offering, "The Last Lviv Beer & Soup Supper".
The thought of Borscht, beer, Solyanka, beer, and our wonderful breads would whet any appetite. Borscht is typically served with a shot of vodka, garlic and cream. That's something we'd include with every serving.
Every destination has it's most famous site. In Athens it's the Parthenon, although around the Acropolis upon which it was built there are numerous sanctuaries and temples that must also be seen. Athens has hundreds of must-sees for first time visitors and returning travellers.
In Rome, it's the same. There's the Colosseum, then dozens of monuments, museums, squares, statues, catacombs, columns, arches, fountains and galleries. It would take several lifetimes to see everything in Rome.
In Lviv, it's Rynok Square, and there are only a few places close nearby that can be described as being must-see. What isn't well known is our insider knowledge, what's out of sight our secrets.
Must-sees in any destination means most tours will visit the same places. We know this better than anyone else in Lviv as we also work in Rome, Florence, Pompeii and Herculaneum, where every other tour is +/- exactly the same as the one before. Must-sees equals mass tourism
For this reason, we turn our back on the beaten path whenever possible. If you take time to read our tour descriptions, that will become clear and quickly.
Our guided Lviv tours are operated privately, ergo no groups. Without having to hammer the point home in every article, the crux of the issue is spelled out here and clearly. We are very aware of the damage that may yet come to Lviv old town if guided group tours are not carefully controlled.
✍ by Metrus on October 20th, 2025.