Is Prague the new face of Over-tourism?

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nathfgg1

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13 Page MLA Format

Include in writing Citations and Bibliography 

Outline:  

- General Statistics of tourism/over-tourism  in Prague

- How has tourism/over-tourism impacted Prague (the good and the bad) 

*For example: Economic Benefits, real-estate, environment, etc... 

*How it has effected the locals (their reactions and actions) 

- How AirBnb has effected tourism in Prague, as well as the locals (does increase over-tourism) 

-Is Prague doing anything to help with over-tourism?

*For example: Diverting tourists out of the center? 

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Explanation & Answer

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Overtourism: Perspectives from Prague
Of all the problems that one can associate with tourism, having too much tourist activity
would likely the last on that list. On the contrary, having a large influx of tourists into an area is
often considered as a sign of success. The economic benefits that are associated with tourism
makes it easy to portray high tourist counts as a sign of an area’s success. Yet, as modernity can
demonstrate, tourism is not always a benevolent industry. While there are certainly some benefits
in tourism, like the aforementioned economic incentive it can provide for certain regions, there
are a series of negative consequences that can be associated with tourism. As such, one of the
struggles of modernity is the creation of a tourist industry that is not only sustainable for the
visitors, but for the locals, as well. Among the modern issues that the tourist industry needs to
tackle one can find over-tourism. This relatively recent phenomenon has become a cause for
concern amongst many tourist destinations, from the small, tropical islands that attract tourists
with their enviable equatorial beaches, to the large, metropolitan cities of Central Europe. In
Prague, the capital city of the Czech Republic, known for its historical and cultural appeal, overtourism has begun to become a problem. As in other areas that are affected by this modern
tendency, Prague has been affected across various societal spheres. In this essay, the effects of
over-tourism in Prague will be explored, focusing on the multiple effects that can arise as a
symptom of the underlying, uneven distribution of wealth that is seen in the city, like the

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increase in prices of real-estate, population displacement and decrease, and loss of community
identity.
Over-tourism refers to a specific traveling trend wherein “hosts or guests, locals or
visitors, feel that there are too many visitors and that the quality of life in the area or the quality
of the experience have deteriorated” (Goodwin, 2017). Though the term is relatively new, it
describes a pattern of behavior that has been point of interest for many researchers throughout
the decades: the negative impact that tourism can have on the environment and the populations
that are visited (Koens, et al., 2018). These effects will differ, based on the specific nature of
each tourist area. In urban areas, the three main points that individuals tend to associate with a
negative tourist impact are overcrowding in public spaces, tourist behavior, and the
modifications made to the cities to accommodate more tourists (Koens, et al., 2018). More
modern, material concerns would include potential for displacement due to services like AirBnB
and the higher environmental impact that tourist represents (Koens, et al., 2018). At a social and
cultural level, over-tourism can also lead to a sense of loss of community identity (Seraphin, et
al., 2018). Some areas have already begun reacting to these negative trends through the
individual shunning of tourists by the locals, or tourismphobia (Koens, et al., 2018). Others, like
Venice, are considering a Trexit, or the temporal exit from the tourist industry via the banning of
visitors for a certain time period (Seraphin, et al., 2018). The situation in Prague is not yet at that
breaking point, but its tourist part and present is still worth examining, as some of these trends
are beginning to manifest in the city.
Prague would become a tourist hotspot in the 1990s, after the fall of the Communist
regime in former Czechoslovakia (Dumbrovska, 2017). Ever since, the city has seen a significant
increase in the number of tourists it receives. In 2003, Prague would average 47 tourists per day

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per km2, but by 2017 this average would increase to 100 tourists per day per km2. (Peeters, et al.,
2018). For a city of only 1.29 million inhabitants, it can see up to 7.5 million different visitors
every year (Peeters, et al., 2018). The higher numbers are a recent occurrence, with a drastic 61%
increase in total visitors to the Old Town – the historical center of the city – over the course of
less than a decade (Peeters, et al., 2018), but the issues that are associated with over-tourism
began to be noticed back in the 1990s. The concerns that were presented by the end of the decade
can be directly linked to the effects that over-tourism now has on the city.
From a political standpoint, the 1990s saw a diametrical change in its direction. With the
fall of the Communist rule, the nation would undergo a political and economic restructuration
towards a more capitalist dynamic. Privatization returned to the nation, resulting in the return of
real estate stock to their owners from pre-communist days (Dumbrovská, 2016). However, the
poor state of the buildings would ensure that they did not remain in the hands of locals for long.
Instead, as Prague began to attract attention as a tourist hotspot, these properties would be passed
along to foreign investors (Dumbrovská, 2016). Foreign investment would not be limited to the
purchase of old homes, though. Instead, it would represent a significant incentive to the tourist
industry of the Czech Republic, which received more foreign attention than any other national
industry (Dumbrovská, 2016). Though, this focus would not be entirely beneficial, as placing the
growth of the city at the disposal of foreign capital represented a risk for the unequal distribution
of economic and political power within the nation, and more specifically, within the thenbubbling city of Prague (Cooper & Morpenth, 1998). This would become noticeable when the
citizens of Prague began to be marginalized from the planning and development process of the
city, whose governance preferred to let the matters fall on the hands of private industries (Cooper
& Morpenth, 1998). Slowly, the process of establishing a laissez faire economy ensured that one

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