The organizers organized fam-tours to Sychrow Castle; a romantic neo-Gothic castle, Liberec. Foreign buyers and media enjoyed visit to Museum of Glass and Jewellery at Jablonec nad Nisou. Glassworks Novosad, and also mini-brewery as well as another Museum of Glass visited at Harrachov. Many of the tour participants had chance to purchase world-famous Czech glass art from the glass shops.

At MADI, a variety of current travel trade issues were presented and discussed with groups of professionals gathering at seminars, discussions, press conferences and company presentations.

The most attractive events were the satellite workshops:

* 8th Workshop of Tourism Products and Services of Slovakia

* 11th Workshop of Regions and Cities of the Czech Republic

* 3rd Workshop of Croatian and Czech companies offer tourist destination Croatia. Workshop is organized by Croatian National Tourist Board in Prague.

* 2nd Workshop offering the hotels of Danubius Hotels Chain.

* 6th Workshop offering products and services of spa treatments and wellness packages.

According to BMI, the estimate for growth in the number of foreign visitors to the Czech Republic in 2007 is favourable 4% year-on-year (y-o-y). This would represent a pick-up in growth compared with 2006.

Kamil Akcal represented Halay Tourism Istanbul at MADI Kamil Akcal represented Halay Tourism Istanbul at MADI

Suat Tore during workshopSuat Tore during workshop

In 2007, 6,680,400 tourists spent the night in public accommodation facilities in the Czech Republic. Despite the fact that the number of German tourists fell by four percent in 2007, a total of 1.5 million Germans still sought lodging last year. As a result, German tourists are in first place making up 23.2 percent of all accommodations in the Czech Republic. With 8.4 percent, is Great Britain hangs on to the second-place ranking it has had since 2003. In third place are the Italians with 6.2 percent, followed by Americans, Russians, Slovaks, Poles, Spaniards, the Dutch and the French. Tourists from countries neighbouring the Czech Republic combine to make up almost one half of all foreign visits to the Czech Republic.

For 48% of tourists, the most common place to stay (in terms of accommodation) was the capital city of Prague, followed by the regions of Hradec Králové (7%), Karlovy Vary (6.8%), South Moravia (6.5%), Liberec (5.9%), South Bohemia (5%), and Central Bohemia (4.8%), followed by other regions of the Czech Republic.

According to research carried out in the first nine months of 2007, the main reason sited by most foreign tourists (45%) to visit the Czech Republic is to have fun. Another 20 percent came to the Czech Republic to visit friends and relatives. The third most popular reason (18%) to come to the Czech Republic was for business.

Recommendations from friends and relatives play a large role in people’s decision to visit the Czech Republic. Other reasons include decisions made by an employer, information from travel agencies and the internet.