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Will the Corona crisis change Prague?

"The city needs balance"

The global epidemic has toppled the tourism business in one of Europe's most attractive cities ("just trying to survive"), locals are hoping the new reality will take the city back into their hands and the mayor is looking for the middle ground

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• Prague

• Corona

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Tourism

Sunday, August 22, 2021, 11:15 p.m.

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Will the corona crisis change the character of the city of Prague? Before the global epidemic, the Czech capital attracted about 8 million visitors a year (most of them tourists from other countries) and was one of the most attractive cities in Europe. But the corona has collapsed tourism in Prague. In 2020 there were only 2.2 million visitors, with its decline there was a slight increase, but in the bottom line hotel occupancy stood at only 32 percent.

The repercussions are noticeable in every area and the city full of visitors has risen to a new and particularly gloomy morning, when tourism revenues fell by 80 percent last year. The Airbnb industry has been hit, many cafes, restaurants and hotels have been forced to close their doors permanently, and those who survived are licking their wounds.

"We have lost millions upon millions of cars from our revenues," Italian chef Ricardo Luca, who arrived in Prague in 2002 and owns several upscale restaurants scattered around the city, told the Financial Times. "For a year and a half I did not make money. The loss was huge, we are just trying to survive."

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The city is licking its wounds.

Charles Bridge in Prague during the Corona (Photo: AP, AP)

While business owners are struggling for their existence, others in Prague hope that this period will allow the city to restore the balance that has been upset between locals and tourists.

Apartments in the historic center of Prague have been rented out to tourists and in addition catering businesses intended for locals have been replaced with souvenir shops and jewelery intended for visitors.

"If you lived in the city center in 2019, in some places you felt uncomfortable," the Financial Times claimed, and Slave Stark, head of the Czech Republic's hotel and restaurant organization.

"There was a lot of noise and there was no infrastructure to buy food. Only restaurants. We have to bring the historic center of Prague back to the lives of locals. This is a great opportunity to change the structure of tourism. We need to resemble Berlin and increase the number of cultural events in the city. A week of parties. "

Mayor Zdenak The quarrel seeks to reconcile the two approaches.

“It was extreme on one side before the corona and now it is extreme on the other side,” he explained.

"We would like to find a balance and promote sustainable tourism to our city. There must be a middle ground."

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