Prague Castle was most visited Czech site in 2018, but tourism experts encourage people to go elsewhere

Sites in Prague not surprisingly dominated the list of most-visited
Czech tourist attractions, taking six out of the top 10 spots on
CzechTourism’s annual ranking.

Second place went to
the Petřín Funicular, with 2,032,300 visitors, a drop of 1.8
percent, likely due to closures for maintenance. The top three was
completed by Prague Zoo, with 1,427,500, a drop of 1.2 percent. The
zoo earlier attributed the drop to high temperatures in the summer
and the lack of the Stromovka footbridge, which collapsed at the end
of 2017.

Places outside of
Prague in the top 10 were: Dolní Vítkovice, Ostrava, the site of
the Colours of Ostrava music festival, in fourth place; AquaPalace
Praha in just outside Prague in Čestlice in fifth place; Aqualand
Moravia in Pasohlávky in sixth place; and Zoo Zlín in ninth place.

These figures,
though, show that some locations are facing a lot of congestion.
Overtourism was one of the words of the year for 2018, according to
the Oxford Dictionary.

“It is necessary
to work wisely with tourism, it is our Czech oil,” Jan Herget,
the new director of CzechTourism said. “In developed countries, oil
and gas extraction does not burden the environment or the local
population. This can also apply to tourism in our country. When we
sell the advantages of the Czech Republic abroad, we recommend that
tourists and travel agencies seek alternatives to the seasonally
congested centers of Prague, Český Krumlov or Adršpach,” he
added.

“Since June, we
have begun to regulate the number of short-term visitors, for
example, by introducing a coach parking system. This gave us a new
source of funding for the city’s budget, with 16,000 such buses
coming to us every year. … We also plan to improve the visitor
discount card and include activities outside the city,” Hák said,
adding that bike path projects were also part of the overall plan to
attract active tourists and spread them to other nearby sights in
South Bohemia.

Adršpach is an area
on the Polish border with an attractive natural landscape that was
featured in the 2005 film The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It
had more than 280,000 tourists in 2018, according to the Society for
Destination Management of the Broumov Region. In peak season, though,
it lacks the infrastructure for the crowds. The trails become crowded
and cars are parked in private driveways. The region is seeking ways
to regulate the amount of tourism while not reducing the economic
benefit.

“Everyone can
benefit from tourism, while minimizing the burden on life in cities
and regions. Tourism is a significant part of our national wealth,”
Herget said. The share of tourism in the Czech Republic’s gross
domestic product was 2.9 percent last year, with 239,000 people
working in tourism. “For comparison, Czech agriculture generated
2.8 percent of GDP and only half of jobs,” Herget said.

The minister for
regional development also encouraged tourists to seek more diverse
areas. ““I am pleased that new names are becoming increasingly
popular in the list of attractive tourist destinations, and that
tourists are traveling outside busy locations. We want to achieve
their greater regional dispersion, which CzechTourism fulfills
primarily with the help of marketing campaigns at 24 foreign
offices,” Regional Development Minister Klára Dostálová (ANO)
said.