Prague, Jan 13 (CTK) – The Kotva department store in Prague centre from the 1970s that wants to focus more on Chinese tourists is the first modern building in the city to have acquired its official name in Chinese, too, it announced in a press release yesteday.
The name composed of three Chinese characters gao-te-wa that reminds of the Czech name Kotva (anchor in English) was chosen with the help of the Confucius Institute of Palacky University in Olomouc, north Moravia.
The characters point to the “exceptionality and high quality.”
The department store owned by the Irish company Markland will use the name in campaigns targeting Chinese customers.
The Prague City Hall wants to apply for entering Kotva in the list of national cultural heritage this year.
Kotva was built in 1970-75. Designed by the married couple of Vera and Vladimir Machonin, the five-storey building is considered one of the most interesting Czechoslovak buildings of the 1970s.
The importance of the Chinese for Czech retail is rising. In the third quarter of 2015, they spent more than the Russians who previously led the ratings.
From July until September, Chinese visitors accounted for 33 percent of the whole sum tourists from other than EU countries spent in the Czech Republic. The Russians’ share dropped from 31 to 16 percent year-on-year, according to Global Blue that mediates VAT refund for non-EU tourists.
In 2014, as many as 211,000 Chinese tourists arrived in the Czech Republic and the Czech Association of Tour Operators and Travel Agents (ACCKA) estimates their number rose to some 270,000 last year.
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