Fewer tourists came to the Czech Republic in 2009 than the year before. Reasons are the global financial crisis and the continuous decline in interest in the Czech Republic as a tourism destination.
According to the annual report by an analytic company Mag Consulting, less than six million foreign tourists visited the Czech Republic last year. It is a ten per cent decline in year-to-year comparison. Mag Consulting expects similar development also for 2010.
The manager of Mag Consulting, Jaromir Beranek, claims there were two key factors that caused the decline: “The interest in the Czech Republic as a tourism destination on foreign markets has dropped. This decline in interest was observed as early as in 2008. The global economic crisis has also influenced tourists’ behavior.”
Czech News Agency informed that hotelkeepers were not only interested in the numbers of tourists coming to the country but naturally, mainly in the number of nights they spent in hotels. According to the analytic company, in 2009 foreigners stayed only 17.6 million nights in Czech hotels, which is an 11 per cent decline in year-to-year comparison. This means that tourists spend fewer days in the country than they did before.
Mag Consulting expects the number of visitors to further drop in 2010. They estimate that there will be five per cent less visitors and the number of nights spent in hotels will drop by six per cent.
Revenues of hotels and restaurants were understandably down last year. According to Mag Consulting, revenues of tourism related businesses dropped by nine per cent to €5 billion. Because of the negative development in the sector, businesses had to lay off employees. According to Mr. Beranek 3,000 people lost their jobs last year.
Related:
CZECH TOUR OPERATORS SOLD 15% LESS VACATIONS IN 2009
CENTRAL EUROPEAN SPAS POPULAR AMONG VISITORS FROM THE MIDDLE EAST
I don't know how many visitors the Czech Republic gets from the UK but I reckon the (sensible) decision by the authorities to cut back on stag and hen parties is a significant part of the reason for the 'loss of interest' in the country there. Whenever I travelled to Prague half the aircraft was filled with them.
That's not true - the CZ government has no way to 'cut back' on specific types of tourists of course.
1)The company which I had to visit told me not to take any other taxi but the yellow cabs at the airport (all others may even steel your money they said)
2)the company was ± 15 minutes drive from the airport but the "yellow cab driver" managed to drive me around for more than one hour and still not had found the address.
3)Apart from the company's manager NO ONE speak another language but Czech,even the local bus drivers were not able or willing to try to understand me with English, German, French or Spanish.(OK,I don't speak Czech but who do as foreign visitor?)
4)In all hotels,restaurants,buses smoking is apparently allowed.Locals were even not willing to wait for smoking until we had finished diner.
5)The food we've got in a restaurant recommended by locals as one of the best in town was disgusting.
This was my first but definitely my last time to Prague