WTTC warns that 7 per cent of employees in the Czech tourism industry will lose their jobs this year.
World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) announced that seven per cent of 100 thousand direct tourism employees in the Czech Republic will have to leave the industry. The growing unemployment is caused by the economic crisis.
Among these employees are hotel personnel, staff in travel agencies and transport companies. WTTC claims that more than half a million of people are dependent on the tourism industry in the Czech Republic, which is roughly ten per cent of the country’s active work force.
Czech daily ihned.cz reported that among those who are indirectly involved in tourism are e.g. suppliers for hotels and restaurants as well as theatres and souvenir makers. According to the WTTC the employment in the tourism industry will drop by ca. 5.5 per cent.
According to a Czech analyst Jaromir Beranek, the current economic downturn is to be blamed for the rising unemployment in the industry. While the number of tourists did not change a lot, the revenues have declined significantly. According to him the local companies will have to lay off people or face great difficulties.
The spokesperson of the Czech Association of Travel Agencies and Tour Operators, Tomio Okamura, points out that there was an above-average decrease of foreign tourists last year. “We lack a functional development concept of the tourism industry and there is no real interest in dealing with it on the political level,” he added.
The biggest amount of people working in tourism in Europe is in Croatia, where 27 per cent of population is directly or indirectly dependent on tourism. Second comes Cyprus (20 per cent) and third Greece (19 per cent).
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I wonder how WTTC counted the percentage of people soon to be fired. Are they fortune tellers or what? Although you can forecast certain trends I don't believe you can exactly say what is going to happen in 6 months or so. Seems silly.