Director of CzechTourism on 2024 summer season and beyond
Summer is over, and now CzechTourism, the country’s state-funded central tourist office, is reflecting on its successes and problems. The organisation’s director, František Reismüller, spoke to Danny Bate about the season just gone, as well as his predictions for this winter and his vision for CzechTourism in the years to come.
What was new or different about the summer season for tourism this year in Czechia?
“I think the biggest difference, compared with previous years, is that we had fewer Czech tourists in the summer season than last year or the year before. It probably stems from the fact that, after Covid, people are daring more to travel again. The energy crisis and the bad inflation are gone as well, so people are keener to travel abroad.
“We heard this throughout the summer from some of the businesses and establishments in regions traditionally visited by Czech tourists, that they had fewer people, and the numbers have only confirmed it.”
At this time of year, you are transitioning into a different season for tourism, the winter season. What are your predictions for the winter of 2024 and the beginning of 2025?
“We expect probably a very similar season to last year. Some of the markets that are quite important for the Christmas season are growing, so maybe it will even be slightly better. For example, we have the new direct flights from China, and the Chinese, although they do not travel that much in October and November, tend to visit Christmas markets in Europe. So, we expect good numbers there.
“And I believe this season will be very good also from the point of domestic tourism, as we are now running a campaign that is focused on making Czech people to Czech mountains throughout the winter.”
Well, this country does have some excellent mountains so I can certainly understand that campaign. A final question: under your directorship, what are some of the plans of CzechTourism for the foreseeable future? What sort of programmes and projects would you like to see happen?
“One thing that we have started doing on a larger scale this year – because it's been exactly a year since I took the position – are the conversion-oriented campaigns. This means that we want to see the exact arrivals of foreign tourists to Czechia here for our money.
“So this year, at the moment, we are running a campaign with the portal lastminute.com. This is a campaign in the UK and Spain, which is really focused on bringing people here. The result of the campaign should be direct bookings in Czechia. We did a similar campaign with the V4 countries (Hungary, Slovakia and Poland) in the US this summer. To Czechia alone it brought 28,000 US travellers, and 25,000 euros, which is great result. We also ran a similar campaign in Germany and Italy, and we are just now expecting the results to come back.
“This is something I definitely want to continue with on a larger scale next year. Although Czechia is still not such a well-known country in the world, and there are definitely some markets when we need to focus on, in terms of image, branding and brand awareness, I think that it is still worthwhile. We can show the general public, and also politicians and our other stakeholders, that when we spent one crown, we can get this many tourists for that one crown. It's quite important and that's what I want to continue with.”
