Thursday, February 18, 2010

The Czech republic is not ready for tourists

Some news speak of a story about 350 Danish High School students from Christianhavns Gymnasium who were kicked out of their hotel due to riots. However it isn't true. Not a single student were sent home.

The trip which were organized by the students themselves ran into some problems when the hotels they had chosen showed very little ability to deal with normal tourist behavior.

The behavior shown at the hotels is not a special phenomenon for Danish tourists. In fact The Sun had a larger piece about the problems tourist from the United Kingdom faced when they travel abroad. Some remember the culture clash which led to an arrest of a British woman and her boyfriend when they showed affection for each other at a public beach and in relationship to this story The Sun published this story explaining the problem.

The problems seems to be based on a huge difference in culture and education between the tourists and the native population. The obvious question is if there is such a big difference between a country like the Czech republic and Denmark. To this question the answer must be yes.

One of the most prominent politicians Denmark has ever produce - the former member of the European Parliament Mogens Camre spoke very clearly about how much difference there are between Danes and the population from some parts of eastern Europe. France 24 wrote on their homepage that he did hit a raw nerve in the question of expanding the European Union.

I guess what happened in Prague was that there were some kind of miscommunication between the Danish tourists and their Czech hosts. The native population were not able to understand the communication between Danes which obvious took place on a higher and refined level. They were simply not prepared to host foreign tourists.

It is a huge problem for travel agencies to find the right place to send out their guests. In this case it was a private trip arranged by the students themselves. The school did not send teachers to Prague. So maybe too little research had been done when choosing the destination.

It you look at the possible travel destination in Eastern Europe, one country are able to stand out. Bulgaria was worn down after some 50 years of communist rule. So in order to have interesting places for the tourists to see they built Sunny Beach. Today this area is the only interesting place to visit as there is nothing else to see but it is there. Bulgaria has built a model of how to attract tourists the rest of the countries in the eastern Europe could copy.

I hope that the high school students overcome their ordeal and the quite hostile environment they by mistake traveled to. While it seems hard at the moment it is a important lesson they have learned. Danes should consider things twice before choosing to either work, study or spend their holiday abroad. Not every place in the world is friendly to outsiders.

9 comments:

  1. Er du totalt blank??? - Kan godt lide din version af Bulgarien... Der er ikke andet at se end Sunny Beach? Jesus... Bulgarien ca. 2½ gang større end Danmark - Jeg tror der er rigeligt at se! Bulgarien har 9 attraktioner på UNESCO World Heritage Sites... Danmark har 4, hvoraf en er på Grønland. Du fremhæver Mogens Camre som en af de mest betydningsfulde politikere danmark nogensinde har haft... Jeg er færdig af grin. Beatrice Jensen... Jeg er ked af du har sådan et syn på den verden du er i... Håber du er glad her i Danmark (hvor du næsten kan være tryg)

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  2. Sjovt at jeg kun har hørt godt om Tjekkiet og selv været der i 2003 og fandt dem meget gæstfri og det samme for Polen i 1999. Ved ikke lige hvad der er blevet slugt inden den artikel men tanken falder da på LSD eller derover. Men så kan man jo altid tage til Århus eller sådan hvis man mener man får mere kultur ud af det end at rejse til et andet land. Og hvor lamt at sige at Bulgarien kun har Sunny Beach at byde på det er bare med til at gøre mig flad af grin...

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  3. This article confirms my suspicion - that this country is biased against Danish youth.

    The article is excellent put together.

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  4. Danske unge er for fokuseret på udlandet. De bør blive hjemme. Basta!

    Det er kun årtier siden at Tjekkiet rejste sig fra 50 års kommunitisk udnyttelse. De skal helt klart bruge flere år på at kunne forholde sig til udenlandske turister.

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  5. Exactly the problem... Your "suspicion" - not your experience!!!

    Karl Johanson said...

    This article confirms my suspicion - that this country is biased against Danish youth.

    The article is excellent put together.

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  6. Maybe High School students shouldn't leave Denmark on language trips because it is not only xenophobia and lack of respect of our culture. I learned that a Danish High School student died in Austria because he could adjust to the cold climate. Alcohol culture in Denmark wrote the article Maybe language trips abroad should be stopped about this tragedy.

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  7. How old are you people?? You need to take trips to the country of wich you want to learn the language... Are you just small scared persons or what? I have travelled a lot in my life and i am still young and i have NEVER EVER seen or experienced problems on any of my trips... And i have been in Red Light District in Amsterdam and the Gypsy Hood in Prauge... I have even been in a country where 80% of the population lived of crime and they were not bad at all... You are the kind of people that make it sound bad for others to experience the world and live their lifes and i bet you would go to the media to create hysteria so people would stop going out of Denmark... Get a grip!

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  8. Er det en ung, dum studine, der efter et halvt år med samfundsfag, tror hun kan redde verdens situationen? Hvad siger du, Beatrice? Hvad med om Mogens Camre (en af de mest prominente politikere....? HAHAHAAAAAA!!!!!) og dig gifter Jer og tager til Vestjylland så I trygt kan se hinanden i øjnene og nyde hinandens prominente selskab langt fra os andre farlige mennesker...

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  9. Det har altid undret mig hvorfor at studerende vælger så eksotiske steder at rejse hen. Min mor havde været i Rusland fordi at mange i klassen havde nogle "røde" sympatier.

    Det blev til 6 dages sulteferie og noget der lignede hærgen af den første og bedste pølsebod i Finland lige efter grænsen.

    Der skulle have været nogle ansvarlige voksne mennesker, der skulle have advaret dem imod befolkningens sande grumme natur i dette land.

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