Final Word from Thursday, August 7, 2008
Perhaps the best way to save the Czech travel industry is to appoint a tourism czar. Several people might already fancy themselves this, and some are doing a good job (such as Pavel Hlinka of AHR and Tomio Okamura of AČCKA). But what the country, and esp. Prague, needs is a go-getter who can both promote the country abroad in foreign languages and sell local politicians and businesses on the need for drastic changes. Such a person would need to work with the cabinet, Parliament, city hall, central bank, hotels, restaurants, travel agencies and taxi services to come to an understanding. The current top tourism official, Development Minister Jiří Čunek, has been busy with other things and didn't make his first big tourism-related splash until yesterday. Talk of a catastrophic decline in tourism revenue in Prague is overstated, he proclaimed. He's more used to denying problems than tackling them.[Czech Republic travel industry Association CzechTourism]
Glossary of difficult words
to fancy oneself (as) something - to have an unduly high opinion of oneself or one's ability in a particular area;
AHR - Association of Hotels and Restaurants;
AČCKA - Association of Czech Travel Agencies;
go-getter - an aggressively enterprising person;
central bank - the Czech National Bank is responsible for monitoring currency-exchange offices;
splash - a striking or exciting effect or event;
to tackle - to make a determined effort to deal with (a problem or difficult task).