Prague “outsources” city’s spires to cope with slump in tourism
Prague is home to some of the most exquisite medieval architecture – and not to mention some of the finest beer – in Europe. But the number of foreign visitors was down some 20% in the first three months of this year, bad news for a city so dependent on tourism. The Prague Tourist Board has now taken the unprecedented step of “outsourcing” the running of seven of the city’s most famous towers to a private company, a move that not everyone is happy with.
Prague’s Old Town Square echoes to the chimes of the famous Orloj, a medieval astronomical clock that’s one of the most instantly recognizable symbols of Prague. Each hour, on the hour, the chimes are accompanied by a jerky procession of painted wooden disciples and other figures to the delight of the tourists below.
But those crowds are definitely thinner these days – that 20% drop in the number of tourists is almost palpable, and the city’s hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions are really feeling the pinch. Jaroslava Nováková is the deputy director of the Prague Tourist Board:
“We are fighting. We are fighting to bring tourists back to the city of Prague. It’s a question of promotion, it’s a question of new attractive programmes. We’re cooperating also with CzechTourism, which is the official tourist board for the whole Czech Republic, and together we are making a strategy for how to be more attractive for our potential customers.”
The Orloj hangs on the south wall of the 13th century Old Town Hall, a gothic masterpiece whose tower is visible from much of Prague. Indeed the Czech capital is often called “the city of a hundred spires”, but here’s the problem: thousands of foreign tourists pass those spires each day, but only a few go up them, as I found out from quizzing this visitor from the United States:
Can I ask you, do you know what this building is?
“It’s a building that’s got a very interesting clock, where these characters come out and slowly shake their heads, but, uh…aside from that no, that’s all I know.”
So you don’t know the name…
“I don’t recall names.”
Do you know if you can visit it or not?
“I do not know.”
OK, that’s good, that answers my question because they’re trying to get more and more people inside. You can actually visit it and go right up to the top, where people are standing. But you didn’t know that.”
“Did not know that.”
That lack of information should soon be a thing of the past, if a private company called ABL has its way. From August 1st, the Prague Tourist Board is handing over the running of seven famous Prague towers – including the two towers on either side of Charles Bridge, the Old Town Hall, and also the mini-Eiffel Tower on Petřín Hill - to the company, which has some rather innovative ideas on how to draw attention to them.
ABL says it will place trumpeters at the top of the towers, in a bid to entice more tourists to go up them and create more revenue for the city’s coffers. Greeters and town criers in historical costumes will mill around at the bottom, and there will – says ABL – be more information in foreign languages and much livelier historical explanation. Zuzana Fryaufová is the company’s spokeswoman:
“I’ll give you an example – the tower on the Malá Strana side of Charles Bridge is I think the least visited of all seven towers, which is certainly a shame. The reason for that might be that the view from the towers is the same, or at least similar. After a tourist has climbed all the way up those steps to the top of the tower, he or she has little inclination to climb up another one. So what we want to do is to make it worth their while climbing up the other ones as well, and that’s what our plan is all about.”
The plan, however, is not to everyone’s liking. This is the first time Prague’s cultural monuments have been outsourced to a private firm, there were no other bidders in the tender, and what’s more, ABL’s primary business is providing security guards and surveillance systems to banks and companies. Opposition critics on the city council ask why the Prague Tourist Board can’t do the same job themselves, and there have also been dark rumours of increases in entrance fees.
“One private company which is in charge regarding seven tours cannot change nothing, of course. We have to make the promotion of the Czech Republic as a safe and kind country. Everybody knows we have great historical monuments. We need – and we’ve already asked Prague City Hall many times – to carefully check all the negative matters written about Prague in the guidebooks. That means thieves, taxis, exchange offices, safety problems. And we have to change the law to make it better.”
The Czech tourist board CzechTourism says there have actually been many improvements in the above areas, which have for two decades left some visitors to Prague with less than happy memories. But Filip Remenec, CzechTourism’s head of PR, says it’s also partly up to the tourists themselves to do a bit of homework:
And as Filip Remenec points out, the pinch being felt by Prague is being felt everywhere in Europe, as more and more people choose to stay at home this year:
“For example, I got the data from Moscow, they had minus 20% there, in Rome they had minus 30%, so we have to try to find some other ways how to attract the clients. It’s very hard, but it’s very hard not only for us but for other European cities because Europe is the key tourist market.”
To that end CzechTourism, the Prague Tourist Board and the Prague City Hall are working together on new initiatives such as the Prague Events Calendar, a website which highlights just five or six cultural events for tourists from the hundreds on offer. Critics such as Tomio Okamura, however, say the city still lacks a comprehensive and effective strategy to make new tourists come and old ones come back again. Until then, it seems, he’ll have to make do with small innovations such as town criers in historical costumes and buglers blowing trumpets from the rooftops.
