Education

Going on Assignment in Prague July 2026 – July 11, 2026

Can Prague Tame Its Tourism Boom?

By Josephine Böllhoff

Prague city leaders promote “sustainable tourism” campaigns and new regulations – but residents say overcrowding, Airbnb rentals, and nightlife chaos are still eroding daily life.

At 7:00 am, Prague’s renowned Charles Bridge is still empty, but within hours thousands of tourists from all over the world will jam the 14th-century structure.

With more than 8 million visitors in 2024, Prague has hit a record number of tourists, making it one of Europe’s top urban travel destinations alongside cities like Barcelona, Paris, and others.

“Wherever you go, it’s crowded,” complains Michael, a resident of Prague’s most popular area for tourists, the district of Prague 1 (his name has been changed for privacy reasons). For 28 years, he has lived in the New Town area, one of five historic towns that now comprise Prague’s city center and attract the most tourists. He says that the old shortcuts, “where you can sort of get away from the crowds and get where you need to go,” have disappeared.

While the Czech capital is known for its rich history, stunning architecture, and buzzing nightlife, the city’s booming tourism industry has nevertheless become a liability for many residents who struggle to navigate through packed streets, as well as excessive noise and a loss of local culture that has made way for tourist traps.

Meanwhile, the city’s administration and its districts say they are working tirelessly to combat the effects of overtourism in an attempt to improve the quality of life for residents. But their efforts to balance tourism in the city have yet to make much of an impact, say critics.

In Retreat

Tourism numbers in Prague have skyrocketed since the end of the COVID pandemic, by some measures back to the years before the world shut down. In 2024, the Czech Statistical Office counted 18,326,168 overnight stays in Prague – almost as many as in pre-pandemic 2019. At the same time, short-term accommodation rentals and shops catering to tourists have largely taken over local businesses, says Karolina Snejdarova, spokeswoman at Prague 1 town hall.

“For Prague 1, it is a challenge that essential small businesses – such as bakeries, hairdressers, and similar services that residents rely on in their daily lives – are retreating from the city center,” Snejdarova explains. Between 2020 and 2024, the district lost around 1,300 residents (though part of the drop can be attributed to natural change), according to the Czech Statistical Office.

Some locals living outside the city center, meanwhile, say they avoid downtown whenever they can. Nicole, who lives in the Prague 10 district, is a student at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University. With school located right next to tourist hotspots like the Charles Bridge and Old Town Square, she struggles with overcrowding even in her university building.

“Tourists, they tend to visit our school like an attraction, so when I wait for my classes, usually I meet a lot of tourists that just go to my school to visit it and use the bathrooms,” she recounts.

Putting Prague First

To tackle the challenges brought about by overtourism, the city of Prague introduced its first sustainable tourism strategy in 2020, titled “Putting Prague First.” Developed by Prague City Tourism, the city’s official destination management organization, and the Institute of Planning and Development of Prague City Hall (IPR Praha), the strategy seeks to “balance the economic benefits of tourism with the strategic interest of the city, namely the sustainability and improvement of the quality of life of its residents, ensuring their safety, as well as the protection and development of culture, and our historical heritage.”

According to Miroslav Roncak, a sustainable tourism expert and researcher at the Prague University of Economics, policies like these are needed to ensure, with the help of tourism, a “better quality of life for residents … and better quality of experience for visitors.” Up until 2019, he says, Prague’s tourism development was more uncontrolled, compared to now, a topic he has written about in the past.

Part of the city’s strategy, Roncak says, is to change the city’s previous image as one of Europe’s party and beer capitals to a destination that attracts “more sophisticated target groups” – those with more money to spend, who will choose hotels rather than cheaper options and stay for longer than a weekend. Next to a recent ban on guided pub crawls between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., Prague City Tourism launched a campaign as part of an effort to urge tourists to behave respectfully. Joining other initiatives within a sustainable tourism campaign run by UN Tourism, Prague now emphasizes “slow tourism” – “prioritizing a deeper individualized experience over a fleeting unified experience.”

The Prague 1 district office is aware of the toll overtourism is taking on residents. In response, Snejdarova said the district had introduced a range of measures: the increased presence of city police in overcrowded areas, cooperation with businesses to ensure regulatory compliance, and educational campaigns aimed at encouraging better behavior from visitors. “Additionally, the municipal council holds community meetings to collect residents’ feedback and adjust its actions accordingly,” she adds.

In April 2025, the district formally urged the Prague City Council to ban scooters in the district, but the council rejected the request.

Does It Work?

Despite efforts such as these to stem the effects of too much tourism on various levels, the situation in Prague looks much as it did pre-pandemic. Joining a Europe-wide protest wave against overtourism from Palma to Barcelona and Lisbon, a small group of protesters gathered in Old Town Square on 28 June to demand better legislation around Airbnb. The Prague Institute of Planning and Development counted 9,000 listings in 2024, 56% of which were concentrated in the Prague 1 and 2 districts, and many of which remain under the radar. The concentration of beds reached more than 20 per 100 inhabitants in the four most heavily-touristed neighborhoods, the institute said.

“It’s difficult to provide exact numbers because there are also short-term accommodations that do not comply with the law, which means the municipal council doesn’t receive accurate data,” explains Snejdarova.

At the same time, the city’s educational campaigns have had only a marginal effect on locals’ experience of daily life, some say.

“We’re happy to see the signs … but we don’t see that they have a strong effect,” says Michael. “There are some signs … that say ‘no drinking outside, it’s a residential area,’ [but] we see people sitting under those signs drinking. And if you say something to them about that, they get very aggressive.”

In addition to the campaigns, Michael hopes for better legislation around nightlife in the city center and for stricter enforcement of already existing legislation. Roncak, on the other hand, calls for improved dialogue among the various actors involved in tackling overtourism: the local authorities, businesses, residents, and tourists. For him, legislation is just one step for tackling overtourism; “another one is communication.”

is an editor and media professional based in Berlin. For the past two years, she has worked as a production and communications editor with Are We Europe. She began work on this article while attending Transitions’ Going on Assignment international reporting class in July.

Photos by the author.