Future of Prague Series: AmCham Prague Council and Tourism Council on how to generate more revenue per tourist
Prague has great beer. The city also preserved a historic city center that rivals Venice in size and beauty. The cobblestone streets of Bohemia’s capital offers much, much more. Karel Capek invented the word robot in one of his visionary plays about mankind’s future. His invention sits on the shoulders of other literary creations such as Meyrinck’s Golem or Kafka’s Metamorphosis.
Last week, AmCham President Michal Chour, General Manager of Alcron Hotel Prague, and Weston Stacey, AmCham CZ Executive Director, sat with Jan Herget, Director of CzechTourism, Lenka Žlebková of the Prague Congress Centre, the Prague Airport, Visa and others to discuss how the city’s rich, multi-lingual, multimedia cultural heritage can produce an innovative tourism policy.
They agreed that some disincentives need to eliminated. The City of Prague should receive money directly from an increase in volume and spending from foreign visitors. That is why AmCham will propose the incoming national government increase the room tax Prague can charge (and perhaps introduce a sales tax) to shift revenue collection and enable the city to develop and maintain a modern tourism infrastructure.
AmCham also will develop a scorecard that measures the impact of tourism on the entire economy, and can track the impact of tourism initiatives.
Finally, AmCham will be meeting with operators of festivals to see how we can develop their international guest list, connect them with other priority sectors in the Prague economy, and combine them with academic workshops in order to build major, annual landmarks of the city’s innovative economy.
Author: wms
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