The tourism year journal gives an overview of activities dedicated to tourism by the Ministry of Regional Development in 2013. It provides updated statistical data and information on trends in tourism, as well as strategic, legislative, and international activities.
The performance of the Czech tourism sector in 2013 can be classified as moderately growing, although not in all parameters. The impact of the years of crisis continued to show, both in the Czech Republic and in the global economy. With 7.3 million foreign tourists coming to the Czech Republic, collective accommodation establishments registered a record visit, yet the number of nights spent grew far less which confirmed the trend towards shorter holidays. The situation was similar in domestic and spa tourism. On the contrary, income from tourism remained stagnant which again confirmed the structural changes in demand for tourism, namely a shift towards new source markets from Asia and Latin America.
Year 2013 saw the completion of major strategic documents for the tourism sector. In March, the government approved the new National Tourism Policy for the period 2014–2020, which was prepared jointly with the Tourism Marketing Strategy 2013–2020 of the CzechTourism agency. The upcoming years will become an uneasy time of change and search for new ways of funding the development plans.
Also this year, one of the key activities of the Ministry was its legislative role. Work continued on finalizing the Act on Tourism Support. However, due to difference of opinions among various professional associations and other stakeholders on the law’s design, and due to the complexities of the Czech law, the Act has not been completed. Amendments continued to Act No. 159/1999 Coll. which in particular enhance consumer protection in case of a travel agent’s bankruptcy, eliminate fraudulent behavior, and harmonize the terminology with the new Civil Code.
Among other activities a note should be made of the commenced certification of establishments within the Czech Service Quality System; it is a tool enabling participating entities active in tourism to progress towards improvement of their services. After over five years of preparations, first Czech entities were able to receive a prestigious international service quality mark “Q”. The Ministry also presented more results from projects focused on improving statistical data and information on tourism; data obtained from nationwide statistical censuses have proven particularly valuable. The continued National Tourism Support Programme can be deemed successful, too, as for the fourth year in a row it provided support to specific projects in the field of social tourism. Thankfully, the Programme could be extended, which – in view of the current programme financing – will probably make it one of the key support tools in the sector.
The Ministry was also extremely active in the field of international co-operation. Among successful events was the choice of the Capital City of Prague as the host of a prestigious OECD event – the 12th edition of the Global Forum on Tourism Statistics and Eurostat in 2014.