South Bohemian Region's websites

South Bohemia - Tourist Area

People from the whole of the Czech Republic as well as foreign visitors take advantage of the natural environment with a lot of woods and forests, water surfaces and many cultural landmarks (almost 6 thousand sights of historical or cultural interest). In summer they usually travel for recreation near the water dams Lipno and Orlík, South-Bohemian ponds, they also visit the Šumava Mountains. In winter, visitors to South Bohemia come to the Ski Resorts of Churáňov and Zadov in the Šumava Mountais. According to the last census of accommodation facilities that was carried out in 2001 there were free capacities of 64.3 thousand in the region. Almost half of these capacities were seasonal and there were approximately 20 thousand campsites too. The structure of accommodation facilities comprised 218 hotels with 12.3 thousand beds, 403 boarding houses with 9.4 thousand beds, and 1671 individual letters of accommodation offering 10.1 thousand beds. It is very specific for the Region of South Bohemia that there are numerous private cottages and weekend houses that are rented by their owners - the region abounds in more than 25 thousand such accommodation facilities for individual recreation.

There are several road border crossings (Dolní Dvořiště, Studánky, Nová Bystřice, Nové Hrady, Slavonice, Halámky, České Velenice, Strážny), 2 railway border crossings (České Velenice, Horní Dvořiště) and border crossings open for foot-passengers and cyclists (Stožec, Chlum u Třeboně, České Velenice, Přední Výtoň, Zadní Zvonková, Plešné jezero, Třístoličník, Bučina, and České Žleby). Apart from that, during the tourist season or on occasions various temporary border crossings for foot-passengers are open.

In 2002, 731,000 visitors, out of which 228,000 arrived from abroad, mostly Germany and Austria, were accommodated in statistically observed accommodation facilities. The average length of stay per a foreign visitor was 3.4 days. Many foreign visitors come for one day trips, which cannot be statistically observed. They visit resorts near the border (Český Krumlov, České Budějovice).

During the course of every year, there are various exhibitions in the fairgrounds in České Budějovice. The most significant exhibitions are: an agricultural exhibition called "Země živitelka" (the Earth - the Food Provider) and an exhibition called "HOBBY". These exhibitions are visited by approximately 500,000 visitors.

Many forms of cross-border co-operation have been developing in the past few years. One of them is the Euro-region Šumava/ Böhmerwald/ Bayerischer Wald, which covers the area of 16 345 km2 with the population of 1.3 million. This Euro-region is a union of 109 Austrian, 83 Bavarian and 91 Czech municipalities. 59 municipalities out of the 91 are from the South-Bohemian region. This union brings considerable benefit, especially in the field of transport, services, and tourism, and also in the area of exchanging experience. In May 2002 a foundation charter of another Euro-region called "Silva Nortica" was signed. This region covers the area of the districts of Jindřichův Hradec, České Budějovice, Písek and Tábor in the Czech Republic, and the districts of Krems, Gmünd, Waidhofen an der Thaya and Horn in Lower Austria. This region covers the area of 10 639 km2 with a population of 0,7 million. The aims of the cross-border co-operation are: to present the region as a whole, to exchange information, and to increase tourism in this area.

In August 2002, most of the area of the South-Bohemian region was affected by floods, which caused serious damage. The first wave reached the region on August 7th and 8th, when the levels of the rivers Malše, Vltava, Blanice a Stropnice increased. However, on August 12th and 13th there was the second, even more damaging, wave. The flood destroyed or damaged houses, farms and industrial buildings, crops in the fields, bridges, roads and railways. The total damage was estimated at nearly 16 billion Czech crowns. An overwhelming majority of these damaged facilities have already been repaired.