Prague, Aug 17 (CTK) – Travel agencies have criticised the intensified security measures at Prague Castle, the presidential seat and the most popular heritage sight in the Czech Republic, saying the checks raise their costs and bother tourists, the agencies’ representatives told CTK yesterday.
Jan Papez, spokesman for the Association of Travel Agencies, called the tightened checks ill-considered and harassment of tourists.
The tourists addressed by CTK expressed understanding for the tightened security measures.
Prague Castle dismissed the criticism. The spokesman for President Milos Zeman, Jiri Ovcacek, said security must be preferred to financial aspects.
Prague Castle introduced checks of visitors at all entries to the complex two weeks ago. Both soldiers and police are scanning the visitors’ bags.
The Castle administration says the checks are random and that they should mainly focus on bigger weapons.
Long queues were formed from time to time outside the Castle, mainly on Hradcany square and Powder Bridge, due to the checks. In “tourist rush hours” around noon, people had to wait for dozens of minutes to get in.
According to Ovcacek, travel agencies have not adapted to the situation and they keep bringing tourist groups to Prague Castle at the same time. He added that he expected the situation to change within a few days up to weeks.
Papez also says travel agencies will have to accommodate themselves to the situation. However, he disagrees with the view that travel agencies are to blame for the long queues at the Castle.
Travel agencies received information about the planned tightening of security measures at Prague Castle, but without concrete details, Papez said.
Foreign tourists’ trips are planned long time ahead and it is difficult to change the programme at the very last moment, he added.
Papez criticised the applied security measures, but he admitted that they must be respected in the current security situation in the world.
“However, they are conducted in a very unfortunate way at Prague Castle,” he added, calling the checks “technologically botchy.”
The Czech Republic has long ranked among the safest countries in the world, he pointed out.
The checks had to be introduced, Ovcacek said without elaborating.
Hynek Spinar, spokesman for Cedok, the oldest travel agency in the country, has also challenged the security checks.
He said they negatively influenced attendance to Prague Castle.
Waiting time for the entry makes the sightseeing at the Castle longer, which also increases the travel agencies’ costs of guides and coaches that were not calculated in the trip beforehand, Spinar pointed out.
Ovcacek argues that people’s safety is the priority. “Safety cannot be translated into money. They should realise this in travel agencies,” Ovcacek told CTK.
Prague City Tourism, a subsidised organisation of the Czech capital, was opposed to the planned security measures at Prague Castle in its press release in June.
“We do understand that security of the presidential seat is a priority. Exactly Prague Castle is the most visited sight in Prague, and if we limit the public access to it or introduce strict security checks there, people will perceive it negatively,” Nora Dolanska, director of Prague City Tourism, said.
Its spokeswoman Katerina Bartova said mainly guides and not tourists alone were complaining about problems with the checks.
Tourists addressed by CTK on Tuesday afternoon when the waiting time was counted in minutes expressed understanding for the checks.
Ywona, a Polish woman living in Germany, said the checks were normal and she expressed surprise at no checks existing there in the past. Yet she expressed doubts that the current measures could prevent a terrorist attack.
A young couple from France also considered the checks common and they agreed that security was most important.
A group of Slovak tourists shared this view.
“We did not mind waiting for a few minutes,” Karel, a Czech man from Tabor, south Bohemia, told CTK.
