Abstract
Tourism Overview
Following a pick-up in growth of foreign tourist arrivals
to the Czech Republic in 2007, increasing by a
relatively favourable 4%
year-on-year (y-o-y) to almost 6.7mn, BMI estimates that foreign arrivals
increased at an annual rate of just 1% last year. Moreover, after a poor
showing in the last two quarters of
2008, data for Q109 show considerable
deterioration in the hospitality sector for foreign tourism.
Hospitality
The number of overnight stays (foreign and domestic) totalled
7.3mn in Q109, which was 8.7% lower yo-
y. Of these overnight stays,
foreign tourism nights were down a massive 18.6% compared with the
same
period in 2008, while domestic residents, by contrast, recorded a modest 2.3%
y-o-y increase. A
total of about 2.3mn guests was recorded at collective
accommodation establishments in Q109, down
8.4% on Q108. Although domestic
guests showed a slight annual increase of 1%, the number of foreign
guests
fell 17.1% y-o-y. Spa accommodation establishments recorded a fall in
overnight stays of 9.5% yo-
y, of which foreign tourism nights were down
16.5% y-o-y. Concerning key source markets in the first
quarter, the
number of German guests fell almost 16% y-o-y, while overnight stays by German
tourists
declined by an even larger 18.6% y-o-y. Guest arrivals from the
UK declined 32.4% y-o-y in Q109 (after
a fall of 23% y-o-y in Q408), while
nights by UK arrivals fell by over 34% y-o-y (down 26% y-o-y in
Q408). The
number of guests and overnight stays by Russian tourists were lower by 13% and
13.3% y-oy,
respectively.
Forecast Scenario
In 2009, we foresee a
relatively large annual decline of 9% in the number of foreign tourist
arrivals. A
more marked decline in the number of European tourists,
falling around 11% y-o-y, is forecast, with
German and UK tourists in
particular expected to record significant falls. Although slight recovery in
the
growth of aggregate tourist arrivals is anticipated in 2010, BMI
anticipates a relatively strong rebound in
2011, with annual growth in
arrivals of 5%. Although short-term weakness of the Czech koruna in
relation to the euro should help underpin the tourism sector, our view of
longer-term strength of the
koruna is likely to dampen growth in arrivals
from the eurozone over the forecast period.
Prague Ruzyně
International Airport
Recent traffic data from the country’s main
airport confirm the extent of the downturn in tourism. After a
sharp
slowdown in growth of total passenger traffic at Prague Ruzyně
International Airport in 2008 (an
increase of 1.6% y-o-y following 7.4%
annual growth in 2007), figures for the first five months of 2009
show
steep falls in traffic, down over 14% compared with the corresponding period
of the previous year.
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