In 2020, only 2.2 million international visitors came to Prague. Domestic tourism, on the other hand, experienced a slight upturn
Last year, tourism in Prague suffered huge losses. According to data from the Czech Statistical Office, only 2,178,267 visitors came to Prague. Tourist visits to Prague thus reached only 27 percent of the 2019 figure. During the summer holidays, however, Prague saw a 16 percent year-on-year increase in the number of domestic tourists, partly thanks to the ‘At Home in Prague’ campaign.
According to available data, last year saw the greatest number of inland tourists headed to the metropolis, more than 700 thousand of them. This was followed by tourists from neighbouring countries such as Germany, Poland and Slovakia. Traditional visits from Russia and the UK began to dwindle as early as February. Only some 200 thousand came to Prague from these countries, compared with 800 thousand in 2019. Due to the adverse developments of the pandemic, tourism also fell significantly in the last three months of 2020, by 93 percent year-on-year. The drop was thus comparable to the second quarter of last year, between April and June.
“The coronavirus situation and anti-epidemic measures will keep tourism under unwilling hibernation for some time to come. Thanks to the measures we implemented last year in cooperation with Prague City Tourism, Prague had more visits than hitherto from domestic tourists, who would not otherwise have visited the metropolis. As soon as the situation allows, we will make every effort to revive tourism without delay,” says Hana Třeštíková, Prague City Councillor for Culture and Tourism.
Although the situation in tourism has been and continues to be critical, domestic tourism experienced slight growth last summer. Compared to 2019, the number of inland visitors increased by 16 percent during the summer holidays. According to experts from the Prague City Tourism promotion agency, such estimates were to be expected, since in-country tourism is recovering faster than international.
“Since our new strategy includes greater focus on the domestic market, we see the upturn in domestic visitors as a positive sign. One of its contributing factors has been our promotional campaign ‘At Home in Prague’, which ran from the middle of last year. We are currently in discussions with the City about the option to re-run the programme this year,” adds František Cipro, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Prague City Tourism.
