Sooo Many Tourists

I have been wondering about blogging about the levels of tourism in Cesky Krumlov for some time now. You may think me a hypocrite for complaining about tourist numbers, having published a visitors guide to the town. But then I have always argued for sustainable tourism with visitors staying long enough to benefit the town, rather than the quick in/out visits we are getting now. 

The major change we have seen over the past few years has been the massive rise in Chinese tourists, so much so that the Czech press had nicknamed the town “Činský Krumlov”.  To put the issue into numbers - the town has 14,000 inhabitants but gets over a million visitors. 40% of those visitors are Chinese.  But until a few years ago Chinese visitors were rare. 

Most of these visitors come on day trips by bus from Prague, but when I say day trip their actual stay in the town is a lot shorter than that. The result is that the town is overburdened with tour groups who do not spend enough time here to actually make a positive impact on the local economy. The centre of the town has basically been surrendered to the tourists. Over the last fifteen years I have watched as shops serving locals have all been replaced by tourist shops, even my bank has vacated its site on the main square and moved out (it is going to be replaced by a hotel). Last year Katerina Seda, a conceptual artist-in-residence at the Egon Schiele Gallery, satirized the situation by hiring locals to live in the town centre. 

The Town Council has just announced that it will be charging bus companies 1500 czk  (60 Euro) for each bus visit to the  town with effect from June of this year. But 1500 czk is not a lot when divided between a coach load of tourists and I doubt will have any impact on visitor numbers.  But then it is hard to see what would. 

The Chinese love the romantic nature of the town, so much so that Chinese tech giant Huawei is constructing a full-size replica of Krumlov's castle at its Chinese headquarters in Dongguan, just outside Shenzhen. Yes you read that right - a full-sized replica! They have as much right to enjoy the town as any other nationality, and who can blame them, but how do we balance that with the adverse impact on the town?

Murder in the bedroom.

One of the problems with leaving my Czech house empty for months at a time is there are sometimes some nasty surprises when I get back. Once it was a blooming of dryrot fungus in the kitchen. This time it was the signs of a murder in the large bedroom.

While I was away my neighbour with my agreement showed a friend around the house, as the friend was looking for somewhere to buy in our part of South Bohemia. What my neighbour did not know was that you needed to make very sure the cellar door is closed because the local farm cats like to jump through the cellar window and get in to a nice warm house. There was a definite cat smell about the house when I arrived and paw prints on my furniture, but that wasn't the worst of it.

In the large bedroom the floor was covered with tufts of fur, and flecks and smears of blood. When I swept up the fur it was apparent that the creature that came to a grisly end there was not exactly a mouse, the hair was longer, had an orange tinge and there was a large pile of it. I still do not know what the victim was, but I do have a good idea about the identity of the murderer. I suspect that the creature that did the deed was a beech marten. I have seen them around occasionally. They are capable of taking quite large mammals: such as rabbits and squirrels. They will also take kittens, something my cat-loving friend was always worried about. It may well have been an immature cat which was followed and cornered in my bedroom. I will never know for sure. Whatever it was, I had the unwelcome job of clearing up.