Czech hotels are among the hardest hit by the pandemic, with turnover having fallen by 66 percent between January and May. That’s the finding of a new study by Cushman & Wakefield provided to Hospodarske noviny. Even now, after borders and countries have opened up in Europe, the occupancy in Prague hotels is lagging at just one in six, while nationwide, they’ve reached just 35 percent. Borivoj Vokrinek, head of C&W’s hotel division, says the cause of the current low occupancy is the high level of dependence on foreign tourists of Czech hotels as well as the rapid reaction of the Czech government to the pandemic. “That successfully limited the spread of coronavirus, but it had a catastrophic impact on hotels because compared to other cities in Europe, they lost clients sooner,” he says. Another issue is that many Prague hotels are dependent on congresses, fairs and other international events that were cancelled or postponed until the second half of the year. This has led the Interhotel group to wait to open three of its hotels – Congress, Olympik and Tristar – until September, when such events are set to start up again.”
