Prague wants to accelerate the return of tourists this summer

It is renewing and introducing direct flight connections to attract visitors from the US, Middle East and Europe

Prague Airport, Prague City Tourism and CzechTourism have joined forces to launch an international marketing campaign to accelerate the return of tourists and develop fight connections with the capital city. According to data from the Czech Statistical Office, tourists are indeed returning as 2.8 million guests stayed in Czech hotels in the first quarter of 2022. This number is impressive when compared to last year’s 280,000. 

However, despite this increase, CzechTourism reports that the majority of the 2.8 million guests were people from neighbouring European countries. In other words, the alleviation of COVID rules and restrictions has not yet attracted tourists from further abroad. 

Targeting specific regions

With the new campaign, the three bodies now seek to focus on attracting tourists from distinct regions. More specifically, Prague Airport will target visitors from the US, CzechTourism will focus on the Middle East, and Prague City Tourism will work on attracting tourists from selected European markets and Israel. 

Chairman of Prague City Tourism, František Cipro, explained how the capital seeks to attract tourists, disclosing that it will launch the Stay in Prague digital campaign in June and use Mastercard’s behavioural data to target groups of people who have specific interests, such as history or gastronomy. In this way, it will encourage them to spend more nights – and in turn, more money – in Prague.

Stay in Prague campaign features 3 promotional videos
(Source: CzechTourism on Facebook)

The campaign will target a total of 14 countries, with CzechTourism revealing that it will focus on promotion in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, whose residents can replace the current lack of tourists from Asia and Russia.

Stressing the importance of direct flight connections

In recent months, the Czech capital has renewed and introduced numerous direct flight connections. Commenting on this, the Director of Aviation at Prague Airport Jaroslav Filip shared:

“Our goal is to support the resumption of direct flights and the demand for trips to the metropolis and further to the entire Czech Republic. Prague is, and always will be, the biggest attraction for travellers from abroad. It is on the basis of their demand that air connections will be introduced, which will also be available to Czechs. They will have more opportunities to choose and visit destinations abroad.”