FIGHTING UNLICENSED TOUR GUIDES: A CASE FROM THE CZECH REPUBLIC
Main Article Content
Abstract
The Czech Republic has been selected for a case study of a country without legal rules on tour guide practice. Especially Prague has seen widespread operation of illegitimate tour guide services, which leads to economic costs and damages the city’s reputation. The data consists of primary sources, laws and transcriptions of formal debates on the new legal rules. In the analysis, we assessed the new legal rules qualitatively, analysed the parliamentary debates in the Czech Republic, and compared the state of legal regulation of tour guide practice in EU countries. The new legal rules will provide for official checks on tour guides. In the legislative process, tour guide associations lobbied with a view to making the rules more stringent. They achieved to make it compulsory for all tour guides to carry IDs in plain view. Tour operators and travel agents were opposed to
the legislation. They achieved to prevent amendments to the Trade Licensing Act. As a result, tour guides without professional qualifications will continue to be allowed to operate, only with a registration and an ID.
Article Details
Copyright and originality of the offered manuscript
1. It is assumed that the manuscript offered has not been previously published. It is expected that the authors will inform the editorial board of TLQ if the entire manuscript, its parts or some relevant results have been previously published in a different publication at the level of an article in a reviewed scientific magazine or monograph. Should the editorial board of TLQ conclude that this condition was not fulfilled the review process may be terminated.
2. It is assumed that the submitted manuscript is an original academic work. If that is not the case the author needs to provide information regarding all circumstances that could raise doubts whether the manuscript is the outcome of original research.
3. By submitting the manuscript the author acknowledges that after the publication in The Lawyer Quarterly her/his work will be made available online to the Internet users and also kept by the Library of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Author's rights to further use the work remain unabridged.