Czechs Are Now Travelling As Much as Pre-Pandemic
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic has revealed that this year’s summer tourist season shows that Czech citizens are returning to active travel to the levels before COVID-19.
The latest data provided by the Ministry also show that the most popular countries visited this year by Czech tourists include Croatia, Greece, Spain, and Italy, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
“Croatia reported a record number of holidaymakers this year, over 870,000 Czechs visited between January and September, an increase of about a fifth compared to last year. Greece also recorded success, where the interest of Czech tourists approximately doubled, to 450,000 visitors,” the report reads.
According to the Ministry, after the well-known traditional destinations such as Spain, Italy, Egypt, Turkey or Bulgaria, in recent years, citizens have shown great interest in Poland, which, in addition to holidays, has also attracted them to shopping.
In this regard, Minister of Foreign Affairs Jan Lipavský pointed out that he feels happy that Czech citizens have returned to travel after COVID-19, adding that it is also good news regarding the economy and tourism.
“My colleagues from the consular service are doing an excellent job, and I owe them thanks for the way they take care of Czech citizens abroad. We are now intensively working on the digitisation of our services, specifically in the form of the DROZD mobile application,” he also noted.
As the Ministry explains, this year, the achieved statistics of consular actions in the summer season practically equal those of 2019.
On the other hand, the sad statistic is 139 deaths, which unfortunately was a record.
In addition, the representation offices abroad issued 1266 replacement travel documents. At the same time, they dealt with the situation of 288 detained Czech citizens, and there were also 330 cases of Czech citizens who became victims of criminal activity abroad.
Based on this situation, 91 Czechs had to be hospitalised abroad, where in 90 cases, a Czech citizen was involved in a traffic accident.
Vice President of the legal and consular section, Martin Smolek, also said that consular offices were temporarily established in Barcelona, Spain, Burgas, Bulgaria, Rijeka, Croatia, and Split for this summer season as well.
Moreover, Greece sent police officers to help destinations exposed to tourism, such as Bulgaria and Croatia. With their presence, they contributed to the sense of security of Czech tourists during their vacations, thus helping to overcome the language barrier.
The consular operations and information centre operations also continued during this summer season, where operators had the opportunity to answer various travel-related questions.
Meanwhile, in the previous season, call centre employees handled 35,000 calls.
>>Czechia Improves Cooperation with Croatia & Bulgaria Embassies Ahead of Summer Season
