The majority of tourists traditionally are Germans (1.6 million people). In second place are tourists from Slovakia; their number grew by 12% compared with 2003 (630 thousand). The most significant growth in the number of tourists over four years is observed from the UK: in the first three quarters of 2004, their number reached 522 thousand, which is 55.8% more than in 2003. By the way, Britons often use low-cost flights, and 16 flights a day fly from London to Prague.
At the same time, according to Ilovecz.ru, the number of Polish guests decreased. In the first three quarters of 2004, 9.6% fewer of them arrived than in 2003. Polish tourists in most cases use the Czech Republic as a transit territory during their trips to Austria or to the seaside. CzechTourism aims to change the current situation by organizing an extensive tourism campaign.
Of the total number of foreign tourists, the majority – 4.8 million – stayed in hotels; about 1.5 million stayed with relatives and friends, rented apartments and houses.
For the whole of 2004, the Czech Republic received about 7.8 million foreign tourists (this is an increase of 15-16% compared with 2003). The growth in the number of foreign tourists is also reflected in the country's foreign-currency revenues, which in the third quarter grew by 7.9%, and for the whole year – up to 10% compared with the previous year.
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