Prague, Nov 24 (CTK) – A number of elementary and secondary schools principals have told the Czech Education Ministry that parents do not let their children take part in excursions to Western Europe after the recent Paris attacks, daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) writes yesterday.
In the spring, almost every secondary school student was about to leave for a language trip abroad as the Education Ministry was considerably contributing to schools in order to spend the relevant European subsidies, MfD writes.
In all, 800 million crowns were to be spent on the courses, it adds.
Due to the advantageous offer, the ministry was flooded with applications. In addition, the agencies offering foreign languages courses announced exceptional interest, MfD writes.
However, the tide has turned. “Since the past week, many elementary and secondary schools principals have said the parents do not want their children to take part in the excursions to Western Europe due to the Paris attacks,” Radka Stavova, spokeswoman for Student Agency, a firm offering flight tickets and study stays abroad, is quoted as saying.
This is due to the parents’ fear and the security situation after the terrorist attacks in Paris, although most trips had Britain, not Paris as their destination, MfD writes.
The Education Ministry has already tried to help the schools. It has lowered the number of the students who have to take part in the excursions from ten to five. This is to help the groups that were to leave for Paris in the wake of the attacks and some of the pupils preferred to stay at home at the last moment, it adds.
Tourism businesspeople are saying that the attacks will affect the region as a whole, MfD writes.
This has already been reflected by the offer of Czech travel portals.
In one company, the interest in the “euro weekends” fell by 10 percent and in the short-term trips to Paris it plummeted by 70 percent, MfD writes.
The customers have all but stopped buying the first minute trips to the Mediterranean in the summer. Their attention seems to have shifted to the Caribbean.
“The sales of the holidays to the exotic destinations such as the Dominican Republic or Cuba have surged by as much as 32 percent year-on-year,” a tourism businesswoman is quoted as saying.
However, the effect may be also valid the other way round, for the tourists from outside Europe who planned to visit the Czech Republic, MfD writes.
“Due to this, the growth in our industry from this year may not repeat, although the Czech Republic is still a safe country,” Vaclav Starek, head of the Czech Association of Hotels and Restaurants, is quoted as saying.
($1 = 25.422 crowns)
