Six hundred new small boats were launched on Czech rivers last year, an increase of 30 percent y-o-y. The growing leisure activity, which combines sport with sight-seeing is creating demand for the construction of new marinas in the country’s more popular locations.
One of the existing routes where water tourism is flourishing is the Baťa canal near Zlín in Moravia, where traffic increased 25 percent y-o-y in 2012. The 52 km-long canal was built in the 1920’s to aid in logistics requirements for a huge shoe production operation in Zlin.
The Transport Ministry and the National Waterways Authority plan to support the trend and build a network of public marinas along the Elbe river this year. Eighteen should be built in more frequented tourist destinations such as Litoměřice or Libochovany.
