 Tourism |
The Czech Republic, always a crossroads of Europe,
has many tourist attractions that make tourism an
appealing business with 70-80 million of tourists
visiting the Czech Republic every year. The main
draw for the moment is Prague with its well preserved
compact historic center that is full of gothic,
renaissance and baroque buildings, palaces and churches,
has a charming Jewish quarter and an imposing castle
dominating its skyline. There are all kinds of tourists
coming into Prague, from one-day pass-through backpackers
to top-class visitors. International companies naturally
focus on the top market segment and Prague has thus
seen in recent years large growth of top class hotels.
One of the leading players in the top segment is
the five-star Renaissance Hotel, established more
than seven years ago, and its younger sister, Marriott,
opened across the street in May of last year. Several
other projects are about to be completed, including
Four Seasons and Kempinsky hotels. Will there be
more players coming to Prague? Many experts believe
so. "This city still has room for the upper market
and the demand is growing strongly. This city used
to be very highly touristic; full of bus tours,
flight tours, all of them prearranged tours. However,
now you see more and more individual business people,
leisure travelers, and the trend is that the business
travelers are becoming leisure travelers, too,"
says Rupprecht E. Queitsch, managing director of
Renaissance and Marriott Executive Departments in
Prague. "Anyway this city has so much to offer,
especially on the upper market, that the boom will
continue," he adds, proving his words by a simple
fact - the well established Renaissance hotel has
always enjoyed occupancy in the high seventies and
the relatively new Marriott has finished just short
of 70% occupancy in its first year of operation. |
However, the Czech Republic is much more than Prague. There are many smaller historical towns and cities, several spa regions and mountains ideal for walks or biking. That most of tourist traffic still concentrates on Prague may be caused by the lack of promotion of other touristic areas. "I do not think the government has any strategy to promote the Czech Republic abroad, which is really unfortunate," says Jiri Simane, managing director of Unimex Group, majority owner of Cedok, the largest Czech travel agency. Therefore, Cedok has to rely on its own promotion, conducted by its offices abroad. Moreover, says Queitsch of Renaissance and Marriott Executive Departments, while the season is great, everybody in tourist business must worry about 5-6 months of the off season. "This is where organization is lacking," he adds.
As the Czech Republic becomes an ever-more visited travel destination and tourists learn to visit other places besides Prague, regional authorities, local businessmen and international investors will have to learn how to keep the visitors in their regions and offer them the best services possible. "For example in Pilsen, there are a lot of foreign companies but you cannot find a good hotel there, so this is a great opportunity for a multinational company," points out Simane, adding that there are dozens of opportunities in every region but investors do not know about them. |
