199
DOI: 10.17573/cepar.2021.1.09 1.01 Original scientific article
Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on
the Regulation to Tourism in the
Czech Republic
Lukáš Novotný
Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem, Faculty of Arts, The Czech
Republic
lukas.novotny@ujep.cz
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8115-6386
Pavlína Pellešová
Silesian University in Opava School of Business Administration in Karviná,
The Czech Republic
pellesova@opf.slu.cz
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2595-923X
Received: 28. 2. 2021
Accepted: 6. 4. 2021
ABSTRACT
The article deals with issues concerning the regulation of tourism during
the Covid-19 crisis in the Czech Republic. Tourism is among the most af-
fected economic sectors by the current pandemic. During the pandemic,
the State compensated the financial losses of tourist guides, but such
compensations were – according to the guides themselves – insufficient.
The aim of the research was to find out how tourist guides see the Czech
crisis legislation with regard to tourism and the legislative measures tak-
en by the Czech Government and Ministry of Regional Development to
support tourism. For such purpose, questionnaires were distributed to
employees in tourism – guides, particularly. We examined their attitudes
to the tourism legislation in the Czech Republic in connection with the
pandemic situation as well as public administration. Next, in-depth in-
terviews were conducted. On the one hand, the research revealed great
interest of tourist guides in the legislation and the current situation in
the Czech Republic. On the other hand, it showed a negative evaluation
of the adopted legislative measures and crisis legislation. On the basis
of the research, the most important aid factors were identified: financial
aid, greater support from the State and municipalities, exemption of so-
cial security and health insurance payments, promotion of tourism and
guide services, support in the form of upgrading skills and retraining. The
empirical part of the research, which used the Chi-Square Test of Inde-
pendence, pointed to a dependence between gender and the attitude
related to the legislation knowledge, between gender and monitoring
of the current situation in European legislation concerning tourism and
tourist guides, and between gender and attitudes when evaluating the
Novotný, L., Pellešová, P. (2021). Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on the Regulation to
Tourism in the Czech Republic.
Central European Public Administration Review, 19(1), pp. 199–222
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Lukáš Novotný, Pavlína Pellešová
legislative measures adopted by the Czech Government and Ministry of
Regional Development in relation to tourism support. At the end of the
study, some recommendations are provided on how to improve the pre-
sent situation.
Keywords: tourist guide, public administration, Covid-19, tourism, Czech Republic,
management .
JEL: H7, K4, Z3
1 Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic is a genuine stress test for states around the globe
(Aburumman, 2020; Wen et al., 2020; Romagosa, 2020; Hossain, 2021). The
economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has also painfully affected
tourism in the Czech Republic and all related sectors. For example, Czech spa
industry has experienced a decline of sales by 60 percent during the first five
months of 2020 and reports loss worth hundreds of millions CZK. Long-distance
flights, bringing almost 0.5 million tourists from China and the US last summer
disappeared. It is not purely the case of the Czech Republic (CR), but it is obvi-
ous that the field of tourism belongs to the economic sectors most affected by
the current pandemic (Skare, Soriano and Porada-Rochoń, 2020). Rebuilding
tourism is a priority but the sector must become more sustainable and resilient
in the future. Tourism continues to be one of the sectors hit by the corona-
virus pandemic in the hardest way and the outlook remains highly uncertain.
According to the OECD, tourism has fallen in 2020 by about 80% (OECD, 2020).
The situation was and still remains unfavourable and the chances for near eco-
nomic recovery are pessimistic. The measures taken against the Covid-19 have
brought (not only) to the Czech Republic fewer tourists and the decline of 90 %
in entrepreneurship in the tourism sector (ČT 24, 2020). This drop has also been
given by the fact that 10.8 million tourists were accommodated in the Czech
Republic, which is the year-to-year drop of 51%. There were nearly ¾ (three
quarters) fewer guests from abroad. The tourists spent 31.2 million nights in
hotels, boarding houses or campsites, a year-to-year fall of 45.3 percent (Idnes,
2021). This had and continues to have the crucial impact on travel agencies,
tour operator agencies, guides working in tourism, consequently, on the fol-
low-up industries such as hotel management and gastronomy as well.
In this study, we want to concentrate on segment tourism sector, particularly,
on tourist guides and how our State helped them and compensated them for
their financial losses during the pandemic. The survival of businesses through-
out the tourism ecosystem is at risk without continued government support
and although governments have taken impressive actions to cushion the blow
to tourism, to minimise job losses and to build recovery in 2021 and beyond,
more needs must be met, and in a more co-ordinated way (OECD. 2020). In
the Czech Republic, there were 4500 people working as tourist guides in the
first half of the last year (Týden.cz, 2020). Especially during the first pandemic
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Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on the Regulation to Tourism in the Czech Republic
wave of the Covid-19, some errors and failings occurred in terms of the sup-
port for tourist guides provided by the Czech Government. These mistakes,
made considerably uncertain not only the guides themselves, but also their
associations (Irozhlas.cz, 2020). How significant these faults were and what
the attitude of the guides themselves concerning the compensation from the
State for the loss of their revenues is, will be the subject matter of this study.
In the process, we will focus on political, administrative and communication
tools regarding this support. By now, we have learned from the Czech Repub-
lic Guide Association statement that the help in the form of compensations of
the losses came too late, which has already been manifested negatively and is
to be pointed out in the following chapters (Asociace průvodců, 2020).
Merely in the field of travel agencies and tour operator agencies, the whole
12 % of these (over 100 market economy operators) halted their business ac-
tivities by the end of October 2020. The number of the shut-down businesses
in case of tourist guides has not been at our disposal yet, however, the sea-
sonal nature and the clustering of international tourism into the particular ur-
ban areas of the Czech Republic – predominantly Prague, West-Bohemian spa
areas, Český Krumlov or Brno and areas connected to this, the accumulation
of tourism industry staff, makes it more difficult for the tourist guides to find
their potential place in the labour market if they were to leave their position.
Of course, the government, by means of their subsidy scheme Covid-Tourism,
tries to aim at the tourist guides’ professional development so that the guides
are not dependent on one and the only market segment, but could find their
place even in the different fields. The vision of the Ministry of Regional Devel-
opment’s (MMR) authority is to find provisional employment with respect to
language-knowledge, Czech language or history, for instance in the education
system. However, the existing practice does not comply with that (MMR, 2020).
The study is designed as follows. Firstly, the attention will be paid to the cur-
rent knowledge we have about risk-management in the tourism sector in re-
lation to the catastrophes, mainly with various health pandemics. We have
some of not utterly complete findings at our disposal, which are obviously
not transferable to the present-day situation concerning the Covid-19, nev-
ertheless, it is possible minimally, to draw certain trends from them. In the
next chapter, then, we will already deal with the Czech Republic and the help
directed to travel agencies, tour operator agencies and tourist guides. We will
highlight that even though the pandemic in the Czech Republic had broken
out as early as in March 2020, the aid scheme was declared no sooner than in
September 2020. This caused strong discontent of tourism entities together
with tourist guides, on whom we will concentrate here. These reported only
10% of the usual procurements (Asociace průvodců, 2020).
The research was both, quantitative and qualitative. In other words, a ques-
tionnaire survey and subsequently, additional in-depth led interviews. The re-
search was carried out with respect to the current pandemic situation, mainly
in the electronic form (in case of questionnaires), or by phone and partly in
person too (in case of additional interviews). It is necessary to add that during
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the last year, apart from pandemic measures, rather a crucial change of legis-
lation was made - in accordance with a new Law No 159/1999 Coll. provision,
tourist guide activity can be performed only by a person to whom the Czech
Tourist Guide Certification Card has been issued.
In the empiric part we concentrated on the quantitative research among tour-
ism employees, namely tourist guides during the Covid-19 pandemic period.
We examined the guides’ opinions on the legislation in the field of tourism
(T) in relation to the pandemic situation and public administration. The goal
of the research was to find out how the tourist guides viewed Czech Govern-
ment’s crisis legislation for the tourism sector and the legal measures taken by
them and The Ministry of Regional Development in terms of the tourism sup-
port provided. This included ad hoc, short-term primary information research
of the descriptive, explorative and monitoring type focused on the facts. The
research methods used for this study was: accumulation of the data by means
of primary research techniques, a data analysis based on the secondary infor-
mation sources, and statistical hypotheses-testing with the Pearson Chi-square
test. The research was both, quantitative and qualitative, in other words - the
questionnaire survey and subsequently, additional in-depth led interviews.
The research was carried out with respect to the current pandemic situation,
mainly in the electronic form (in case of questionnaires), or by phone and part-
ly in person too (in case of additional interviews). The interviewing has been
realized by means of personal questioning in the form of questionnaire in the
written as well as electronic version. The final amount of the research sample
gathered was given by the guides’ willingness to participate in the research.
2 Literature review
Scientific literature offers a wide range of studies about risk management in
the tourism field (Boksbergera, Biegerb and Laesserb, 2007; Fangnan et al.,
2016; Bezkhlibna, But and Nykonenko, 2018). It is essential to mention that
exactly the question of risk is in Tourism the key one (Fodoudi, Tabaghdehi
and Marvi, 2021; Rosselló, Becken and Santana-Gallergo, 2020). There are also
the studies dealing with risk management in the sector of health risks, to-
gether with the fear of infectious viruses which would disrupt the operators’
enterprises in Tourism or which could have a negative impact on the health of
tourists in the various destinations (Cartwright, 2000). We know about the ef-
fects of the pandemic SARS (Chen, Law and Zhang, 2021), for example the fact
that an epidemic SARS outbreak in 2003 led to the drop of 29 % in hotel stock
prices in Taiwan (Chen, Jang and Kim, 2007). Similar results were calculated
in other countries too (Chen, 2011). The research in this field showed that
the relation of Tourism industry towards unexpected events was accentuated
nowadays as a research topic (Law, 2006; Floyd, Gibson, Pennington-Gray and
Thapa, 2004; Hall, 2010; Hajibaba, Boztuğ and Dolnicar, 2016; Novelli, Bur-
gess, Jones and Ritchie, 2018; Modlin, Alderman and Gentry, 2011), however,
far less attention has been paid to the Tourism and health risks relationship
(Zopiatis, Savva and Lambertides, 2019).
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Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on the Regulation to Tourism in the Czech Republic
We know that the COVID-19 pandemic, labelled as a „black swan event‟, has
been causing severe damage to the economy from a disease outbreak (Pak
et al. 2020; Niewiadomski, 2020; Gössling, Scott and Hall, 2020). The range
of this disease forced the WHO to declare the Covid-19 on 11 March 2020
a pandemic. Nowadays, the virus has been spread all over the world, exhib-
iting itself in various parts of the globe with different intensity (Pappas and
Glyptou, 2021; Sikiru and Salisu, 2021). Crucial is implementation of restrictive
measures, together with restrictions on free movement of persons, curfews
and bans on travelling. This has resulted in closure of borders for tourists and
the necessity of social distancing. Therefore, the Covid-19 has caused a huge
economic recession (Eichenauer and Sturm, 2020; Chang, McAleer, and Ra-
mos, 2020; Kock et al., 2020), the consequences of which can be predicted
only with difficulty, though they can be worse than existing pandemic (UN-
WTO, 2020a). In fact, prohibitions on tourism already have and from now on,
will have an impact on the world-wide tourism and it will affect practically all
of its types (Shek, 2021).
This has already been confirmed even by ‘World Tourism Organization’ which
in the relation to this, invites the states to the ‘reasonable’ measurements
implementation in order to support tourism and save the livelihood the peo-
ple who earn their living in this field (UNWTO, 2020b). With regard to the
Covid-19, the data and only slowly lessening pandemic are not favourable at
all. Last year, the decline in the number of foreign tourists was of 70%. Espe-
cially small firms are vulnerable; however, they ensure 80% of the world tour-
ism. The consequences are obvious in all of the states, nevertheless, they are
most vividly demonstrated in those countries that are dependent on tourism.
According to ‘The World Travel & Tourism Council’ (WTTC, 2020), based on the
knowledge about previous pandemics, this field has been recovering slower
than other economic sectors. The UNWTO, in this relation, appeals to states
to transform tourism sector. For this ‘restart’, the UNWTO has determined 5
priorities: 1) to mitigate socioeconomic impacts on peoples’ lives, particularly
on employment of women and social security, 2) reinforce competitiveness
and resilience, 3) support innovation and tourism digitalization, 4) strengthen
sustainability and green growth oriented to natural undemanding resources
and low-carbon-tourism, 5) coordinate partnerships for sector-transforma-
tion so as to achieve the Goals of Sustainable Development (UN, 2020).
According to the OECD, the main policy priorities that governments should
pay attention to are:
– Restoring traveller confidence.
– Supporting tourism businesses to adapt and survive.
– Promoting domestic tourism and supporting safe return of international
tourism.
– Providing clear information to travellers and businesses, and limiting un-
certainty (to the extent possible).
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– Evolving response measures to maintain capacity in the sector and address
gaps in support strengthening co-operation within and between countries.
– Building more resilient, sustainable tourism (OECD, 2020).
3 State’s role in helping the tourist industry
The OECD also draws attention to the fact that a range of tourism profes-
sions should be financially supported in the Covid-19 pandemic. In particular,
among these professions, tourist guides appear as well. It is possible to find
information related to the importance of such implementations from both
sides, the government and the public administration side, to compensate for
‘gaps in provision’ of these services. Thus, it indicates how crucial a role the
state plays in the tourist guides’ survival (Nhuyen and Thi, 2021; Toanoglou,
Chemli and Valeri, 2021). It is in line with the WTTC appeal to governments to
implement policies that would directly support the sector across the follow-
ing three areas, namely:
– Protecting the Livelihoods of Workers: Financial help must be granted to
protect the incomes of the millions of workers in a severe difficulty.
– Fiscal Support: Government must extend vital, unlimited interest-free loans
to global Travel & Tourism companies as well as the millions of small and
medium-sized businesses as a stimulus to prevent them from the collapse.
Governments dues and financial demands on the Travel & Tourism sector
need to be waived with an immediate effect for at least the next 12 months.
– Injecting Liquidity & Cash: Cash flow assistance to support big and small
players of the Travel & Tourism sector is critical as well as to offer targeted
support to severely affected industries within the sector (WTTC, 2021).
On 19 June 2020, the European Parliament voted on a resolution on transport
and tourism in 2020 requesting a further action to support small and medi-
um-sized enterprises hit by the crisis and funding to help the sector. MEPs said
that the crisis should be considered as an opportunity to modernise tourism in
the EU by making it environmentally friendly and socially responsible. Business-
es and workers from the tourism sector already benefit from the EU measures
taken in response to the Covid-19 crisis, including liquidity support, fiscal relief
and an easing of state aid rules, as well as the temporary suspension of the EU
rules on airports slots to avoid empty flights. To protect travellers, the EU has
updated the guidelines on passenger rights and the package travel directive. It
has also facilitated the repatriation of tens of thousands of Europeans stranded
abroad, through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. The EU measures to sup-
port the tourism industry complement and reinforce measures taken at the na-
tional level. The European Commission proposed on 4 September that the EU
countries should coordinate their measures restricting free movement during
the pandemic. The aim is to reduce uncertainty for travellers and businesses
resulting from a wide range of diverging national rules (EU Parliament, 2021).
The support has the form of subsidised interest rates on loans, direct grants,
and exemptions from the obligation to pay certain social contributions. Un-
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Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on the Regulation to Tourism in the Czech Republic
der the subsidised interest rates measure, the State support covers the reim-
bursements, on behalf of tour operators, of package tours cancelled because
of the coronavirus outbreak. The aid in the form of direct grants will support
companies operating in the tourism and cultural sector, which had to inter-
rupt their activities due to the coronavirus outbreak (Poland). The exemption
from the obligation to pay certain contributions will support companies ac-
tive in the tourism and cultural sector (which have lost in Poland more than
80% of their revenues due to the outbreak). Hungary notified the following
main modifications to this scheme: (i) the extension of the measure to an ad-
ditional loan programme called the “Széchenyi Tourism Card”, that is accessi-
ble to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) active mainly in the tourism
sector and it takes the form of an overdraft facility.
Tourism is a distinct service sector and the Czech Republic economy (Novotný,
2021). As for the data from 2019, there was 240,000 people employed in tour-
ism and thus, created about 3% of the GDP. In the Czech Republic, so-called
‘self-employed’, have relatively a high share in the overall employment-rate. If
in 2018, there were 240,000 people working in this sector, there were 41,500
self-employed ones (ČT21, 2021). In hotels, restaurants, private transport relat-
ed to tourism, along with tour operators, cultural services and other business-
es, there were 63.4% of men and 36.6 of women self-employed. According to
various prognoses, it had been assumed that in 2020, tourism sector would
at least confirm very good efficiency in both – national tourism supported by
Czech household finances and in the incoming tourism sector, which recently,
has been boosted by the sharp rise in the number of tourists from Asia.
Nevertheless, the reality was different: the last year showed due to the pan-
demic Covid-19, a considerable drop not only in the national tourism but
also in already very low demand for tourist-guide services. Travel restrictions
worldwide as well as in Europe have stopped traditional interest of foreign
tourists to visit the Czech Republic, so the number of visits remained on the
historic minimum for the whole year.
Travel agencies and operators recorded the losses on bad pre-payments for
planned tours that had been sent at the beginning of the pandemic to their
foreign partners, minimum of the tour packages were sold during spring and
summer (in comparison with the previous seasons) and what is more, they had
to give the money back to clients for the trips which could not have been or-
ganized. The array of tour operator agencies is also dependent on Incoming
tourism which is in the deep fall. Furthermore, tourist guides happened to be in
the crisis as well. They certainly, could have postponed their payments for social
and health insurance till August, however, how, as ‘The CR Guides Association’
added: ‚from September, they were forced to interrupt the business conduct-
ing since they had no chance to earn enough even for tax-payment from this
year season.’ The summer holiday time slowly comes to an end and together
with that, and so do tourist guides. Under such existing conditions, there is no
way to continue and the next peak season is yet far (Asociace průvodců, 2020).
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The Czech Government support came a bit late. The Government of Prime
Minister Babiš did not approve the ‘Covid Tourism’ programme before 19
October 2020 (MMR, 2020). The programme ensured 500 billion CZK (19264
mld. euros to support travel agencies, operators with the aim to boost the
liquidity, save operation and keep offerings of existing services and work plac-
es. Although the draft regarding the Aid scheme was of course, consulted
with professional associations operating in tourism - especially with the Czech
Tourism Forum, the Travel Agency Association of Tour Operators and the
Travel Agents of the Czech Republic, the Association of Czech Travel Agents,
but from these in fact, there could be heard critique in unison that the sup-
port comes late. In the programme, there is a half of billion CZK and it will be
possible to draw money till June 2021 (Novotný, 2021).
Travel agencies support includes maximum 2.75% of the planned revenues
from the trips and tourism services sold that are the part of joined travel ser-
vices for the year 2020. In case of tour operators, the subsidy has been counted
with regards to the number of the tours. Particularly, 500 CZK (approx. 19, 2
EUR) for the trip cancelled due to the pandemic and purchased (tour contract
made) within the period between 1 Dec 2019 and 1 October 2020, and for the
stay in the spa cancelled if the facilities were shut down. Moreover, terms and
conditions regarding the subsidizing of incoming tour operators have been laid
down at 50,000 CZK (1926 EUR). The tourist guides support goes in two direc-
tions. The State compensates their revenue losses (the programme Antivirus),
next, they can as a part of the programme Covid-Tourism, receive one-time
financial support of 50,000 CZK (1926 EUR) on condition that they will provide
specialized educational services (minimally 10 hours) for the schools founded
by the state, district or a municipality, or if they provide further education or
retraining courses accredited by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports
with the purpose of work placement on the labour market (e.g. Pedagogical
Minimum). If they meet not meet a single condition, they can receive one-time
payment of 40,000 CZK (approx. 1541 EUR). The support should have had the
positive influence on the sector as well as tourist guides’ skills development
so that when necessary, they would be able to find their work place in other
fields - not dependent on incoming tourism (Novotný, 2021).
It is necessary to add that during the last year, apart from pandemic mea-
sures, rather a crucial change of legislation was made - in accordance with a
new Law No 159/1999 Coll. provision, tourist guide activity can be performed
only by a person to whom the Czech Tourist Guide Certification Card has been
issued. The Ministry of Regional Development issues two level-types of Na-
tional Tourist Guide Certification Cards. To receive the first one, only registra-
tion is required while for the second level, professional qualification is expect-
ed given by corresponding education. Tourists themselves can choose how
professional their guide should be necessary for them. This step responds to a
long-term pressure of guides on regulation of their activity so as to eliminate
existence of imposters and unqualified guides known especially in Prague. In
addition to that, the Government of the Czech Republic approved the MMR’s
proposal to exempt guides from paying 1,000 CZK (38,5 euro) fee for the cer-
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tification card necessary their jobs from March. It is another way how to help
tourist guide providers affected by the Coronavirus crisis. Thus, their already
worrying financial situation linked to the reduction of their activity caused by
the Covid-19, will not even deteriorate.
4 Research methods
The study tries to respond to the question: ‘How the tourist guides them-
selves perceive the Government aid’ during the Covid-19 pandemic period.
The reason why we have selected tourist guides as a target group from the
field of sole-traders in tourism was to get opinions of one significant group
conducting the business in tourism and hardly hit by the pandemic Covid-19.
We have addressed respondents with the help of the Czech Republic Guide
Association The survey took place last year in November and December. We
examined their attitudes to legislation in tourism in connection to the pan-
demic situation and in relation to public administration. The aim of the re-
search was to learn how guides evaluated the crisis legislation of the Czech
Government in tourism and their and the MMR’s legislative measures in the
scope of support from the CR.
Research methods included data-gathering by means of primary research
techniques, the data analysis available from secondary information sources
and statistical hypotheses-testing using the Pearson Ch-Square Test. Inquir-
ing was realized by questionnaires with the preference of the electronic form,
but a part of questionnaires was received in the written form as well. The
research sample of guides formed 196 respondents of different age groups,
sex and length of practical training. The most of respondents were aged 61
and more (30%), 24% aged between 41 and 50 and 4% aged 51-60, 18% aged
31-40 and approximately 4% aged 21-30. Mostly, the respondents (70%) had
university education, a quarter of them then, high-school education with the
Maturita exam and 2% had high-school or other education, minority were
men (32%). As for the length of practical training, this differed, the most of
respondents had 21-31 years of experience (31%), less than 9 years (28%) and
identically, approx. one fifth, had from 11-20, and 31 and above, years of ex-
perience. The respondents were from the whole of the CR, the most of them
from Prague (53%).
Besides questionnaires, we have conducted 20 intensive interviews as an ad-
ditional technique. These were structured, questions formulated similarly as
in the case of questionnaires as we tried to achieve a deeper knowledge of
the guides’ attitudes. Interviewer’s handbook was first tested out and sub-
sequently, interviews were carried out so as to guarantee respondents’ ano-
nymity.
With respect to objectives defined, research questions have been determined
(RQ1-RQ3, see details below) as well as hypotheses (found below). This Pear-
son Chi-Square Test has been used to show relation between respondents’
sex and the opinion on the factors examined. By means of the Independence
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Test (examining relationship between two quantitative variables, the exis-
tence of dependence has been tested at the significance level α=0,05.
In accordance with the questions, hypotheses have been formulated and
the Pearson Chi-Square Test has been applied for their statistical testing. By
means of the Chi-Square Test, correlation and existence of dependence be-
tween tourist guides’ opinions on the problematic of legislation in the time
of the pandemic and current development concerning tourism in the Czech
Republic and in Europe and sex of respondents have been scrutinized. Depen-
dence between the factors stated and education could not be determined
because the conditions of figures expected have not been met. The research
questions, statistical hypotheses and evaluation of hypotheses with the use
of the Pearson’s coefficient on the significance level α = 0,05 have been iden-
tified. Expected observation values based on the mathematical relationship
(1) and (2), values ni. and n.j, are expressed as a count of all of particular ob-
servations.
=
. .
, (1)
. = . = , (2)
The condition for acceptance of a hypothesis is that distribution is less than
20 % of the values expected less than 5 and none of expected values should
not be lower than 1.
RQ1: Are guides familiar with the legislation related to tourism and tourist
guides in terms of measures connected to the pandemic crisis Covid-19?
Hypothesis H0: There is no dependence between sex and being familiar with
the legislative regarding tourism and guides.
Alternative hypothesis H1: There is a relationship between sex and being fa-
miliar with the legislation regarding Tourism and guides.
For verification of the hypotheses on in/dependence between sex and the
opinion that respondent is familiar enough with the legislation regarding
to tourism and guides in times of the pandemic Covid-19, the Pearson Chi-
Square Test has been used. Frequencies observed and expected which the
test compares, are shown in Table 1.
Based on addends for testing criteria, Pearson Chi-Square (15,48 see Table
2) has been calculated, furthermore, the critical value on significance level α
=0,05 and degree of freedom which is equal to the value (r-1) (s-1) = 4. From
the results it is clear that Chi-Square is higher than critical value (15,48 > 9,49),
also p-value is lower than significance value α (0,0038 < 0,05). On the basis of
these findings, we reject the null hypothesis on independence, however, we
accept H1 hypothesis: there is dependence between sex and attitude con-
cerning familiarity with the legislation. One of the possible calculations of crit-
ical value is application of the Microsoft Excel CHINV function.
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Table 1: Frequencies observed and expected
Observed frequencies – Eij
yes rather yes cannot tell rather no no Total
women 24 90 0 16 4 134
men 12 34 6 6 4 62
total 36 124 6 22 8 196
Expected frequencies – Qij
yes rather yes cannot tell rather no no Total
women 24,61224 84,77551 4,10204082 15,04082 5,469388 134
men 11,38776 39,22449 1,89795918 6,959184 2,530612 62
total 36 124 6 22 8 196
Source: authors
Table 2: Addends for test criteria (Eij -Qij)2/ Qij
yes rather yes cannot tell rather no no total
women 0,02 0,32 4,10 0,06 0,39 4,90
men 0,03 0,70 8,87 0,13 0,85 10,58
total 0,05 1,02 12,97 0,19 1,25 15,48
Source: authors
RQ2: Do guides monitor current development in Czech and European legisla-
tions regarding to tourism? Two questions have been raised.
Hypothesis H10: There is no dependence between sex and monitoring of cur-
rent development in Czech legislation regarding of tourism and tourist guides.
Alternative hypothesis H11: There is relationship between sex and monitoring
of current development in Czech legislation regarding of tourism and tourist
guides.
After the hypothesis verification on dependence, the Pearson Chi-Square
(2,37989) has been calculated and next, critical value on significance level
α =0,05 and a degree of freedom which is equal to the value (r-1) (s-1) = 2.
The results indicate that Chi-Square is lower than critical value (2,37989 <
5,991465), thus, the null hypothesis cannot be rejected. We accept H10 hy-
pothesis on independence, however, the condition has been determined:
more than 20% of expected values is lower than 5. (2 values, Tab 3). Hence,
the dependence has not been verified.
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Lukáš Novotný, Pavlína Pellešová
Table 3: Expected frequencies
yes rather yes no Total
women 72,47 60,16 1,37 134,00
men 33,53 27,84 0,63 62,00
total 106,00 88,00 2,00 196,00
Source: authors
Hypothesis H20: There is no dependence between sex and monitoring of
current development in European legislation regarding tourism and tourist
guides.
Alternative hypothesis H21: There is dependence between sex and monitor-
ing of current development in European legislation regarding tourism and
tourist guides.
Based on addends for testing criterion, the Pearson Chi-Square (15,48) has
been calculated and critical value on significance level α =0,05 and a degree of
freedom which is equal to the value (r-1) (s-1) = 3. The results show that Chi-
Square value is higher than critical value (13,6572 > 7,814728), furthermore,
p-value is lower than significance value α (0,003411 < 0,05), based on these
findings, we reject the null hypothesis on independence and accept hypoth-
esis H21.
RQ3: How do the guides perceive Czech Government and the MMR’s mea-
sures in terms of support from the State in times of the pandemic Covid-19? 2
hypotheses have been determined.
Hypothesis H10: In the time of pandemic, there is no dependence between
sex and attitude concerning evaluation of the government and MMR in terms
of support of tourism field.
Alternative hypothesis H11: In the time of pandemic, there is dependence
between sex and attitude concerning evaluation of the government and the
MMR in terms of support of Tourism field.
Based on addends for testing criterion, the Pearson Chi-Square (2,37989) has
been calculated, then, the critical value on the significance level α =0,05 and a
degree of freedom (r-1) (s-1) = 4.
The results show that Chi-Square value is higher than the critical value
(11,2303> 9,487729), also the p-value is lower than significance value α
(0,024094<0,05), on these grounds, we reject the null hypothesis on indepen-
dent variable and we accept H11 hypothesis, there is dependence between
sex and the attitude concerning evaluating the government’s and the MMR’s
measures in terms of support of tourism.
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Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on the Regulation to Tourism in the Czech Republic
Hypothesis H20: There is no dependence between sex and influence of the
crisis legislation of the Czech Government and the MMR in the time of the
pandemic.
Alternative hypothesis H21: There is, in the time of the pandemic, dependence
between sex and influence of the Czech Government and the MMR.
Based on addends for the testing criterion, Pearson Chi-Square (0,374951)
has been calculated, followed by critical value on significance level α =0,05
and a degree of freedom which is equal to the value (r-1) (s-1) = 3. From the re-
sults, it is clear that the Chi-Square value is lower than critical value (0,374951<
7,814728), thus, the hypothesis cannot be rejected. We accept hypothesis
H20: dependence between sex and influence of crisis legislation of the Czech
Government and the MMR in the time of pandemic has been verified.
Table 4 summarizes the results of analyses of dependencies between two
variables by means of the Chi-Square Tests of Independence.
Table 4: Results of Chi square independence tests
Chi-
Square
degree
of
freedom
critical
value
p-value condition H0
dependence/
independence
1. 15,48 4 9,49 0,004 yes reject dependence
2. 2,38 2 5,99 0,301 no accept independence
3. 13,66 3 7,81 0,003 yes reject dependence
4. 11,23 4 9,49 0,024 yes reject dependence
5. 0,37 3 7,81 0,945 yes accept Independence
Source: authors
Explanatory note:
1. Are you familiar enough with the legislation concerning tourism and tourist guides?
2. Do you monitor development in Czech legislation regarding tourism and guides?
3. Do you monitor development in European legislation regarding tourism and guides?
4. How do you perceive legislative measures of the government and the MMR in terms
of support of tourism field?
5. What is the impact of the Czech Government and the MMR’s crisis legislation in tour-
ism field?
From the figures in Table 4, we can state that there is existence of depen-
dence between sex and monitoring of current development in European
legislation regarding to tourism and tourist guides, however, a condition has
been violated (expected values were lower than 1), thus, we cannot consider
the dependence to be relevant. What is more, H1 on dependence has been
verified in case of sex and following of Czech legislation on tourism in the
field of guiding in times of pandemic. In case of attitude to legislative mea-
sures of the Czech Government and the MMR in terms of support of tourism
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Lukáš Novotný, Pavlína Pellešová
in the time of the pandemic and sex, there was no dependence verified (the
null hypothesis on independence has been accepted).
5 Results
The research proved that most of the respondents (82 %) declared that they
were familiar enough with the legislation concerning tourism and tourist
guides, 15 % has an opposite opinion (Fig. 1). A high number of guides does
not consider the present-day legislative regulation on guide assistance activ-
ities to be appropriate. Guides are mostly people with the tertiary-level edu-
cation, many of whom understand the legal issues in their profession, hence,
it is logical. Moreover, also their CR Guides Association (AP ČR) is, in transmit-
ting of up-to-date information, relatively active.
Figure 1: Do you think that you are well aware of legislation
concerning tourism and guides? (in %)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
yes rather yes cannot tell rather no no
Source: authors
Current development in Czech legislation concerning tourism and guides is
monitored approximately by 99 % of the respondents (Fig. 2). On the other
hand, with regards to open questions, which constituted the part of the re-
search too, it has been shown that in fact, a proportion of people informed
especially about current legislation is lower. Since we have also asked about
new measures planned by the MMR, i. e. the Czech Tourist Guide Certification
Card. Here, the familiarity has been lower and reached 66%. This is somewhat
surprising given how topical the issue is for the AP ČR and generally, especial-
ly for guides mainly from Prague. It may be explained by the fact that because
of closing down of tourism industry in the Czech Republic, guides do not hur-
ry to obtain the card. The implementation themselves i.e. of the Czech Tour
Guide Certification Cards, the guides consider to be something which will not
benefit guide activity regulation. The guides from Prague take their stand in
the card-implementation issue more positively, which is understandable as
the change of this state and the card-implementation has been the main ini-
tiative of the local authority in Prague, coordinated the AP ČR.
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Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on the Regulation to Tourism in the Czech Republic
It is essential to add that the research took place in November and December
2020 and that obligation to obtaining the certification card has been imple-
mented since March 2021, and that guides were, until the end of February,
exempted from paying the administrative fee.
Figure 2: Do you pay attention to the current situation in Czech
legislation related to tourism and guides? (in %)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
yes rather yes no
Source: authors
We have also asked respondents if they pay attention to the current Europe-
an legislation regarding tourism and guides. The results, are, in comparison
with their knowledge of Czech legislation, significantly different. A half of the
respondents does not monitor current European legislation (Fig. 3).
Figure 3: Do you pay attention to the current situation in European
legislation related to tourism and guides? (in %)
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
yes rather yes rather no no
Source: authors
We have also studied how the respondents, in the time of the pandemic
Covid-19, evaluate legislative measures of the Czech Government and the
MMR concerning support of the tourism sector. Most of the respondents has
a negative attitude to the legislative measures put into practice by the gov-
ernment and the MMR in the field of support of tourism in the time of pan-
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Lukáš Novotný, Pavlína Pellešová
demic. Only more than one fifth can see the situation positively (Fig. 4). From
additional interviews it is obvious that guides criticize especially the slow pro-
cess of the support.
Figure 4: Evaluation of legislative measures of the Czech Government
and the MMR in tourism sector (in %)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
maintain balance prefer customers prefer sellers cannot assess
Source: authors
Although, the government began to pay out the compensations from 12
March 2020 at a few-weeks interval, which was not systemic aid. This did not
happen within the programme Covid-19 Tourism until October 2020. Before
that, critique had emerged a few times, even in media, coming from the AP
ČR complaining that the government does not communicate with guides and
does not take any effective steps to support the whole Tourist field, guides
included. About 77% of the respondents is not able to assess the impact of
the Czech Government’s crisis legislation concerning Tourism. More than one
tenth of them think that the crisis legislation sides organisers (i.e. travel agen-
cies, and the like), 8% see the impact in siding with customers and only 3%
mentioned that they are on balance between legitimate interests of entre-
preneurs in tourism field (Fig. 5).
In open questions which formed part of our research activities, we have re-
quested guides about the sort of aid they would welcome. Predominantly,
answers focused on financial support (compensation of income losses), es-
pecially on their swiftness and administrative simplicity. Next, they noticed
some rational State aid and the support of guide’s retraining so as to have
a greater chance to react in the flexible way to the new post-Covid period.
Based on these answers, we have identified the most crucial aid factors: finan-
cial aid, more support from State and the local authority, social and insurance
payment exemptions, promotion of tourism and guiding services supported
by the State, and aid in the form of qualification and retraining.
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Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on the Regulation to Tourism in the Czech Republic
Figure 5: Effect of crisis measures of the Czech Government
in the tourism field (in %)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
maintain balance prefer customers prefer organisers cannot assess
Source: authors
Concerning the noticed financial aid, apart from compensations, there also
appeared the exemption or reduction related to payments of social security
and health insurance. Interestingly, there was a certain stress on the support
of up-skilling and an offer from job centres in the field of guides’ training and
their further education too. It can be assumed that part of them consider ei-
ther cessation of their trade or taking up a second job and so on.
Besides measures linked to limitation of the work of guides in terms of the
Covid-19, other factors of aid aimed at their functioning there occurred such
phenomena as limitation or regulation of the number of new guides, in partic-
ular those without any qualification or knowledge, which according to them
deteriorates image of this profession. Respondents also state aid with rea-
sonable promotion of guides’ activity who cooperate with guide agencies or
travel agencies, reduction of an administrative character concerning demands
related to the occupation, or the possibility of confluence of trade licence and
record-taking and drawing of benefits from the job centre. Even though these
stated measures are not related to the Covid-19, they are an interesting form
of feedback to which more attention should be paid from the MMR’s side.
In interviews, critique of government administration could be found quite
often. This could be directed at both, insufficient financial aid as a result of
cessation of their trade and problems with the complicated administrative
character of this aid. There was repeatedly mentioned an example of illogical
conditions under which, during the first wave of the pandemic when it was
possible to reach the financial support from the MMR, guides had to prove
90 working days in the year 2020. However, it was not possible to reach that
due to the fact that emergency state was declared in the Czech Republic on
12 March 2020. Then, in fact, tourism ceased to exist, hence, from the third
month of the year, they managed to have a part-time job only.
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Lukáš Novotný, Pavlína Pellešová
Quite considerable scepticism has been expressed towards measures not
implemented so far and mistrust towards them as well as the government,
which is related to an inappropriate conception of particular measures. As we
know, the Czech Republic suffers from the Covid-19 considerably, which pre-
vents entrepreneurs in the tourism field from conducting their businesses.
Critique has been directed towards all of the fields of the current multi-level
governance in the Czech Republic, i.e. also to an inappropriate crisis gover-
nance on both, municipal and regional levels.
6 Discussion
The results of the questionnaire survey proved that guides in the current
Covid-19 pandemic regarded themselves as well informed when it came to
legislation and a various kind of regulations and limitations concerning tour-
ism. They also claim that they are interested in current development in the
legislation, mainly the Czech one and partially in the European one too. In
case of the EU norms, a half of our research sample does not follow the cur-
rent legislation at all. Most of the respondents evaluate legislative measures
implemented by the government of the Czech Republic and the MMR in tour-
ism field in times of pandemic in a negative way. Only one fifth of the respon-
dents consider the measures taken by the government in tourism and their
impact as positive. This scepticism has been confirmed in additional investiga-
tion using the form of interviews. Majority of respondents were not able to
say what impact financial and administrative measures had so far on the tour-
ism sector as well as on guides alone, the most of respondents was not able
to tell. Merely a tenth of the respondents can see effects of present measures
taken by the Government, in siding entrepreneurs.
In accordance with the aim of the research, there were three research ques-
tions defined and hypotheses formulated. Dependence between sex and
the factors examined was found with the use of the Independence Test Chi-
Square. It is evident from the independence testing, we accept H1 hypothesis,
thus, there is dependence between sex and:
– familiarization in terms of legislation concerning tourism and guides,
– monitoring of the current situation related to tourism and guides in Euro-
pean legislation,
– attitude detected in the process of evaluation of legislative measures of
the government and the MMR related to the tourism sector support.
Conversely, there was no dependence found between monitoring of current
development in the Czech legislation concerning the tourism and guides and
dependence between sex and impact of crisis legislation of the Czech Govern-
ment in the time of the pandemic.
This research has certainly its limitations of which we are, when interpreting
results, well aware of. However, especially on the basis of quantitative inves-
tigation as well as additional qualitative research in the form of interviews, we
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Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on the Regulation to Tourism in the Czech Republic
will try, in spite of the fact mentioned, to formulate a few recommendations
directed towards public administration and improvement of the current the
tourism policy during the pandemic Covid-19. It is obvious that the commu-
nication of government administration with entities in tourism, in our case –
guides as well as measures implemented so far (financial and administrative)
show some deficiencies.
Statistics show, entrepreneurs’ trust in public administration is disappearing,
which is apparent from our results. Trust in the State from the side of firms,
entrepreneurs and sole traders, is generally disrupted in the Czech Republic,
thanks to unclear and ambiguous decisions, and the frequent changes and in-
sufficient communication from the side of the State. Although, key measures
from the first wave like those aimed at sustaining jobs, for instance the fact
that the Cabinet postponed the due date of taxes and insurance, extended
them allowance, made cash for firms accessible and exempted them from
paying part of taxes, thus, had worked, problems occurred during the second
wave. These trends manifest themselves also in guides’ responses and fall
into the wider context.
It can be concluded that the current communication fails and that it is neces-
sary to improve it sufficiently. Immediately also certain limitations in digitaliza-
tion of public administration in the Czech Republic has been revealed, namely
in insufficient interconnecting of different kinds of information systems and
in monitoring. We consider setting up the effective monitoring system of the
highest importance so that it enables to quickly address parties involved and
access information. On such bases, particular administrative and also financial
measures and other aid should be planned. It is possible to make use of tech-
nologies so as to automatically contact all parties interested. Monitoring sys-
tems thus, make it possible to see the feedback of parties interested during
the crisis, which enables to adjust the strategy and tactics.
The trades shut-down, there is a zero income, most of costs go on, some
companies even go bankrupt. Crisis legislation is in the Czech Republic - very
widely formulated -as well as the State, really cannot compensate all of the
losses which occur in the fight against the Coronavirus pandemic. But, the
Government should have remembered this at the beginning and legislators
should have advised how to declare the Emergency state as well as how to
give orders and impose bans. A special approach of public administration
then, should have been adopted to entrepreneurs in tourism. This field has
been significantly affected, de facto - it has stopped. Yet, the aid has been
insufficient and communication with the guides has not been prompt with
respect to their vulnerability on a labour market. Our results, thus, should
contribute to the rapid change in this matter and to plan measures carefully
either short-term or long-term.
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Lukáš Novotný, Pavlína Pellešová
7 Conclusion
The study shows that support from the state and the public administration
plays a key-role in the Covid-19 pandemic. Furthermore, international organi-
zations such as World Travel & Tourism Council or the OECD point out the im-
portance of state support to save the different professions in tourism (tourist
guides included). Furthermore, the EU is aware of this fact too. It is interesting
to watch debates led on this topic – who should get helped, what is an ade-
quate compensation for the losses, etc. (Payne, Gil-Alana and Mervar, 2021).
First of all, we have to mention certain limitations which this study brings.
Mainly, it presents the quick data, the data available until 20 December 2020,
which is restricted only to the tourist guide sector. This data was gathered
thanks to the CR Guide Association aid from whom we had been provided
with the contacts to their members. We are aware of the fact that we do
not cover the whole of the tourism sector (mainly, a much broader range of
professions such as hotel-owners, etc.). We deal with the selected segment
– small companies and individuals. We perceive our study as a case study
focused on this sector mainly. Support of this sector will still be developing
as long as the Covid-19 pandemic will continue, and it will be interesting to
watch the development of these events.
However, what we can conclude even today from the OECD (2020) findings is
that the lessons learned from this crisis will be – to build a more sustainable
and resilient tourism economy for the future.
Acknowledgment
This paper was supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports
Czech Republic within the Institutional Support for Long-term Development
of a Research Organization in 2021 and by grant within Student grant compe-
tition at UJEP (2021–2022) – project No. UJEP-SGS-2021-63-002-2, “Current
political problems of Central Europe.”
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