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The changing image of Prague after 1989 in the eyes of tourists
Waldmannová, Eliška ; Halbich, Marek (advisor) ; Heřmanová, Marie (referee)
The subject of this thesis is the changing image of Prague after 1989 in the eyes of Spanish and English speaking tourists. After the "velvet revolution", the city has undergone many changes. With the liberalization of trade, restitutions of property and foreign investment, tourism infrastructure has been growing rapidly to accommodate the thousands of tourists who were flowing in to see the newly accessible city. As a result, the city and its residents have been facing many new challenges, acculturation processes and increasing globalization. The aim of this thesis is to explore the views of tourists, who visited Prague repeatedly since the beginning of the 90th to the present, on the changes of the city as well as the whole Czech society. The methodology employed included participant observation and semi-structured interviews. The research was conducted in the historical center of the city during 2010-2011 and subsequently through e-mail communication with the tourist participants. The work is complemented with quantitative statistical data describing the development of tourism in Prague. Based on the theory of the anthropology of tourism and the study of tourism, this work monitors acculturation and globalization processes leeding to the mcdonaldization of work, disneyzation and deurbanization...
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