Observer special report
The fall of Prague: ‘Drunk tourists are acting like they’ve
conquered our city’
Tourists on Prague’s
Charles Bridge this summer. The city is now Europe’s fifth most visited
destination. Photograph: Bartek Sadowski/Bloomberg via Getty Images
As the Czech Republic capital launches a crackdown, the
Observer joins one of the organised pub crawls that are blighting residents’
lives
by Robert Tait
Sun 25 Aug 2019 12.30 BST Last modified on Sun 25 Aug 2019
13.39 BST
Eugen Kukla could not have made his feelings clearer as 120
drunken tourists thronged noisily past his home around midnight, rudely
breaking the silence of a normally sedate city-centre residential street.
“Fuck pub crawls, fuck pub crawls,” he repeated over and
over again, while filming the scene on his smart phone. Some of the crowd
reacted in amusement, smiling and waving into the camera.
But Kukla, 55, a photojournalist, did not see the joke.
“It’s an expression of my personal feelings, a buildup of frustration over a
long period of time, years and years and years,” he said. Kukla says his and
his family’s lives have been disrupted by the snowballing trade in pub crawls
through the centre of Prague and past their fourth-storey flat. “It’s been
going on for 10 or 15 years – but it’s got worse.”
Kukla’s act of resistance was witnessed by the Observer,
which joined one of the organised crawls along with a senior councillor from
Prague 1 municipality, the local authority responsible for the Czech capital’s
historic tourist district – now under strain as never before from a burgeoning
influx of foreign visitors.
On a night when thousands of Czechs marched through the city
marking the anniversary of the Soviet-led invasion on 21 August 1968 that
crushed the liberal Prague Spring in communist Czechoslovakia, tourists from
locations as varied as Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France, Brazil, Belgium
and Armenia roamed the streets on a different mission – to have fun and get
drunk.
The spectacle was graphic evidence that “over-tourism”, a
phenomenon more commonly associated with destinations such as Barcelona,
Amsterdam, Venice and Edinburgh, has arrived in Prague – a city that was all
but sealed off to western visitors until 1989 when the velvet revolution swept
the former communist regime from power.
In the years since, a rising tide of visitors has flooded
in, up from 2.62 million in the year 2000, to just under 8 million last year,
drawn by Prague’s reputation as home to stunning baroque and gothic
architectural gems – and cheap beer. Numbers this year are forecast to reach
just under 9 million.
The trend is transforming Prague and risks pushing out
long-term inhabitants of the city centre – historically considered a
residential district – and turning it into a tourist-only zone. That prospect
was called “humiliating” by Jan Štern, who took office this year as the city’s
first “nightlife mayor” and has negotiated with bar owners trying to persuade
them not to cooperate with pub crawls and to enforce policies prohibiting
outdoor noise that would make conditions more tolerable for neighbouring
residents.
“It’s important that we don’t give up the historic city
centre, which is our most valuable legacy, and not let it become a dead zone
that’s just a background for nightlife and a cheap type of tourism,” said
Štern.
Now the authorities – alarmed at that possibility and the
city’s growing reputation as a location of cheap booze and easy fun – are
pledging a harder line with miscreant visitors, some of whom stand accused of
disrespecting Prague and its inhabitants.
“There could in the future be more action taken by the
police. We want to get that message out,” said one municipal official. “There
will be harder treatment against tourists and more harsh action when they are
making noise. There are even voices calling to use riot squads. When there are
150 people on a pub crawl there needs to be a lot of policemen asking for
documents. If anyone is drunk they’ll be taken to alcohol stations and things
could be really hard for them.”
Over-tourism, as defined by three academics last year, is
“the excessive growth of visitors leading to overcrowding in areas where
residents suffer the consequences, which have enforced permanent changes to
their lifestyles, access to amenities and general wellbeing”. That definition
by Joseph Cheer, Claudio Milano and Marina Novelli, writing on the Conversation
website, aptly sums up the reality of many European cities that have reaped the
rewards – but also borne the brunt – of the explosion in cheap flights and Airbnb-style
accommodation that recent years have brought.
But it is particularly pertinent to Prague, according to
Pavel Čižinský, mayor of Prague 1, who has vowed to transform the city’s
approach by cracking down on pub crawls and limiting alcohol serving times. He
is also promoting information drives to encourage tourists to visit more
peripheral areas instead of over-visited attractions such as Charles Bridge and
the historic ninth-century castle.
The centre of Prague “is losing the quality of normal life,”
said Čižinský, a lifelong city resident who grew up near the Jewish quarter.
“The centre is becoming a goldmine where you earn a lot of money, but it is not
a place for living. It is a significant and crucial problem.
“Too many people are
coming just for a very small number of purposes, and buildings, and those who
want to make profits from the presence of the tourists worsen the situation.”
The signs of such tourist-driven commercialisation are
everywhere, seen in the spread of cheap souvenir shops, massage parlours
painted in out-of-place garish colours – an example of what officials denounce
as “visual smog” – and the dancers in giant panda suits that proliferate in Old
Town Square, exploiting local busking laws. That practice will be illegal from
next month.
But it is the commercial pub crawls and other
alcohol-related “tours” that are altering the city’s previously tranquil
character most dramatically and driving an increasing number of long-term
residents out, leaving vacant properties to be rented out.
Beer bikes, offering tours to up to a dozen people at a time
while they drink unlimited quantities of famous Czech brews to a soundtrack of
loud music, have gained notoriety as noisy nuisances, blocking traffic and
disturbing passersby. A council attempt to outlaw them is currently being
contested by a local microbrewery on the grounds that it is “discriminatory”.
'I’ve remonstrated
with tourists and some have been apologetic, but the guides have been
aggressive and confrontational'
Karolina Peake
Also notorious are walking tours in Malá Strana, near Prague
castle, which often culminate in visits to the Lennon Wall, a famous protest
site during communist times that has since become a place of free expression
for would-be graffiti artists, but is now being defaced with mindless spraying
done at the urging of guides.
After offering unlimited beer, guides have been known to
push clients into posing for outrageous pictures at city landmarks, according
to Prague 1 municipality, which joined one such tour. Tourists were pictured
clambering on to outsize statues of babies designed by the Czech artist David
Černý in Kampa Park and pouring beer into the mouths of two male figurines in
the courtyard of the Franz Kafka museum.
The authority scrutinised the tour after complaints that
people had urinated on a statue unveiled in 2014 by Sir Nicholas Soames, Winston
Churchill’s grandson, to honour Czechoslovakian pilots who fought with the RAF
in the Battle of Britain.
During the tour, some participants were observed writing
obscene slogans on the Lennon Wall, owned by the Sovereign Order of Malta,
which afterwards filed a criminal complaint.
Residents say
such activity has made living conditions intolerable. “I remember this square
being a quiet area where you would rarely meet anyone, let alone a tourist,”
said Karolina Peake, 43, a lawyer who has lived her entire life in a house near
the wall.
“Ever since the wall became part of the tourist and Baedeker
circuit, it has become a bit of a nightmare, and in the last five years it has
become unbearable. A lot of drunk tourists are coming and acting like they have
conquered the place rather than just visiting. They have no respect for the
fact that there are people living here – and it’s making people reconsider
whether they want to continue living in a place where their families have been
for generations.”
Back on the tour that the Observer and the local councillor
joined, people on the Prague Pub Crawl were led down Celetná Street, once the
route of ancient Bohemian kings, to a nearby establishment that offered an open
bar for two hours before the tour was taken to a series of other pubs on a
crawl that lasted into the small hours.
As the group wound from bar to bar, being greeted at each
venue with a free “welcome drink” of cheap vodka, residents could be seen
closing their windows – despite warm summer temperatures – against the rising
din. The commotion grew louder as the night wore on. At no point did a tour
guide ask the group to keep the noise down, despite local laws demanding quiet
in residential areas after 10pm.
Indeed, there appeared to be little fear of the law. At the
corner of Rybná and Benediktská Streets – near the heart of Prague’s infamous
“party district” – a woman vomited copiously, oblivious to a police station
just yards away. She eventually required first aid, administered by the
councillor. Outside a bar on 28 October Street, near Wenceslas Square, a couple
lay smoking flat on their backs, while others on the pub crawl milled raucously
around them.
Only after the councillor – who requested anonymity – called
the police did officers arrive to tell the pub crawlers to quieten down. But
they left without imposing fines or making arrests.
Such scenes are familiar to Peake. “I’ve remonstrated with
tourists and some have been apologetic, but the guides have been aggressive and
confrontational,” she said. “They see the residents as a threat to their
business. Unfortunately Prague has become a bit of an Eldorado for these type
of tour groups.”
The sometimes-obscene graffiti defacing the Lennon Wall has
spread to neighbouring properties and sometimes even cars. “It’s pure
vandalism,” she added.
One particularly ugly piece of vandalism last month prompted
city authorities to up the ante, when graffiti was sprayed on the 600-year-old
Charles Bridge. Two German tourists were fined and ordered to pay restoration
costs. The graffiti was later removed by a Czech man acting alone and without
authorisation.
Scores of tourists
take photos of the historic Astronomical Clock in Prague’s old town square as
it strikes the hour.
One result will be an information campaign of dos and don’ts
on Instagram, which could include pictures of some of the most notorious acts
of misbehaviour being used in pixelated form to advise visitors of what to
avoid. Posters have already been placed on the Prague metro warning visitors
about the need to keep quiet in the streets after 10pm and that failure to
comply could result in a €400 fine.
City-centre residents are being officially “encouraged” by
Prague 1 municipality to report disturbances from Airbnb properties and other
short-term rentals to the police, enabling the authority to fine the owners.
Meanwhile, pub-crawl and alcohol-based walking-tour
companies will come under greater scrutiny for infractions, such as failing to
offer customers receipts – as required by Czech law – or to check if they are
over 18.
Bars cooperating with pub crawls will face increased
inspection on health and safety matters, like whether they are exceeding
capacity, said Čižinský, who added: “We will have to be tougher … I do not
consider the negotiations very successful.”
Despite that verdict, Prague is the envy of Budapest, a city
of comparable architectural distinction that shares its communist legacy and
new-found problems with tourism.
“What I see from Budapest is that tourism in Prague is
managed a lot better,” said Daniel Nemet, a de facto nightlife mayor of the
Hungarian capital, working under a private association of about 50 business
owners. “We have many of the same problems, we have two budget flights arriving
from London every day. But Prague is ahead of Budapest in appointing an
official night mayor, providing information on what to do and not to do and
generally being proactive. Budapest could learn a lot from it.”
Over-tourism: how cities fight back
Venice
The canal city, already under ever-present threat from
natural floods, is considering radical steps to stem the deluge of humanity
streaming in every year: a minimum entry fee, starting at €2.50 and rising to
between €5 and €10 during peak periods.
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The measure has been proposed to limit visitor numbers that
have risen to 30 million a year, many of them day-trippers who – according to
some city officials – stop only to take pictures. It is not the first punitive
anti-visitor tax that has been floated. Authorities previously threatened to
levy fines of up to €500 on tourists pulling wheeled suitcases over the cobbled
streets, the noise of which irritated locals. The penalty was never
implemented.
Barcelona
Anguish over the effects of tourism has reached such a pitch
in the Catalan capital that tourists have supplanted immigrants as targets of
hostility – pithily expressed in the slogan “Tourists go home, immigrants
welcome”, which began to appear on walls in the city in 2017.
Protesters have since marched chanting “Barcelona is not for
sale” and “We will not be driven out”, as a familiar pattern of budget flights
and the rising availability of Airbnb rentals has brought a welter of
short-term visitors to the city, threatening to trigger an exodus of locals
from traditional neighbourhoods.
Called tourism-phobia by the Spanish media, the sentiment
confounds the economic reality that tourists spent an estimated €30bn,
according to 2017 figures.
Amsterdam
The authorities have become so concerned about the effects
of a certain type of tourist who visits the city in order “to party excessively
without regard for the consequences” that they have launched a video as part of
an “Enjoy and Respect” campaign.
The video targets young men aged 18 to 34, from the
Netherlands and UK, who, it says, engage in behaviour that creates “annoyance
for locals and business owners and makes … parts of the city less liveable”.
With more than 17 million visitors a year – including day-trippers – Amsterdam
municipal officials have moved to curb other excesses, including the growth of
hotels, souvenir shops, ticket sales outlets and cheese shops.
Palma de Mallorca
Authorities in the capital of Spain’s Balearic islands voted
last year to ban almost all short-term holiday rentals in private flats, such
as Airbnb, after complaints from locals that the phenomenon had triggered a
surge in rents. Residents had also protested that short-term renters were
behaving disrespectfully and paying little heed to local norms.
Palma is one of several European cities that have been
driven to drastic action on holiday rentals. This year, 10 European cities
wrote to the European Commission requesting its support for their fight against
the “explosive growth” of short-term letting platforms.
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