Airbubba
5th Sep 2003, 04:03
"...In the last few years, a new kind of British tourist, lured by cut-rate airlines whose flights can cost as little as $25 or less, has descended on Prague in unprecedented numbers, apparently with one goal in mind: to drink as much as possible. "
Here's an article on the UK low cost carrier market from the New York Times:
_____________________________________________
Travel Advisory: British Abroad, Staggering About
By SARAH LYALL
PRAGUE, Aug. 30 — The party started early on Friday, when EasyJet's 6:15 a.m. flight to Prague took off from Stansted Airport in Britain.
"We looked on the Internet and these were the flights that were available," said a 30-ish passenger whose breakfast, three cans of Kronenborg, was lined up in front of him.
"I thought we were going to Barcelona, but apparently Prague is quite a historical and cultural city." He snickered.
Meanwhile, his friend had already finished his own first round. "Bring the trolley to me with a big straw!" he shouted, then laid out his goals for the weekend: "Get drunk, I suppose; have some drinks and have a good time."
In the last few years, a new kind of British tourist, lured by cut-rate airlines whose flights can cost as little as $25 or less, has descended on Prague in unprecedented numbers, apparently with one goal in mind: to drink as much as possible. Wasted and aggressive, in drag or wearing only underpants, they spend weekends staggering in packs from bar to bar near Wenceslas Square. So troublesome have they become that some places refuse to serve Britons who arrive in large groups.
"It's disgusting," said Martina Tajdusova, who works in a hotel downtown. "They spend a lot of money here, but the British don't know when to stop, when is enough. They drink and drink and drink."
Tour groups encourage the business by portraying Prague as a center for cheap beer and loose women, and by organizing pub crawls whose participants set out to drink in as many places as possible before stumbling (if they can still stumble) on to the return flight home.
"As a friend of mine said the other day, the British treat every day as if it were New Year's Eve," said Ivo Lorenc, who rents out apartments to tourists, and who once cleaned up after a party of four Britons who stayed for two nights and left 100 empty bottles behind.
In other places, too, Britons are earning a reputation for bad behavior.
In Greece, several British tourists died this summer after bar fights or drunken pranks gone amiss. In one incident that was videotaped by a local businessman and provoked widespread disgust, three British women leading a tour group on Corfu performed flamboyant oral sex on fellow employees in front of a cheering crowd.
In Spain, where more than 600 Britons are in jail, many for offenses committed while on vacation, Lloret de Mar on the Costa Brava has been moved to ban drinking on the streets and beaches. Even hard-drinking Dublin, long a popular destination for British stag parties, began to discourage them in the Temple Bar neighborhood in 1998.
Officials in Prague are in something of a quandary: after a downturn in tourism after Sept. 11 and disastrous floods last year, they are loath to offend the free-spending British visitors, who make up more than 10 percent of the city's tourist trade.
"There's nothing shameful about spending a lot of time in a restaurant or a pub — we are grateful for every tourist," Hana Cermakova, a spokeswoman for the tourist authority, said. "It's true that we have had some complaints about groups of young people, but it's not just the British. It's not possible to divide troublemakers according to nation."
Perhaps not, but the British, particularly those on stag weekends, certainly stand out. They travel in groups. They wear unifying items of clothing, like custom-printed T-shirts or humorous costumes. Residents are still talking about the time a group of 53 women arrived from Wales, each one dressed like Tom Jones.
After the plane landed, the increasingly merry EasyJet passengers were unleashed into the greater community. One group, in Prague to celebrate the coming nuptials of 31-year-old Andy Briault, headed to Rocky O'Reilly's, an Irish bar and first on their print-out list of prime drinking establishments.
Playing drinking games and compelling Mr. Briault to change into an obscene shirt, the group was still on the pleasantly coherent side of drunk, although that would change after a few hours. The pub's owner, Robbie Norton, said that though there was some truth to the complaints, most groups were harmless.
Also, they are big business. For instance, he said, a party of 23 men drank 180 vodkas and 60 cans of Red Bull one Friday. "I know that sounds totally insane, but they came back and did the same thing on Saturday and the same thing on Sunday," he said.
Jonathan Weinstein, the Brooklyn-born owner of the Pricnyrez cafe, has his share of British horror stories.
Once, he said, a group of 20 or so mixed absinthe and vodka until they started throwing up, driving away even those customers who had endured their noise and obnoxiousness. Members of another group stripped and ran around in their underpants. At a bar nearby, he said, two dozen Britons, angry at being served warm beer, upended their glasses en masse and walked out without paying.
Once, he said, three separate groups — from Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham, each supporting their city's soccer team — arrived simultaneously and had to be separated when they began brawling drunkenly in the bathrooms.
Back at Rocky O'Reilly's, another stag party settled in. Having taken a bus tour of Prague that morning ("we're not just philistines," declared the groom, Marty Neley), they had concluded that it was time to get down to the real business of the weekend.
They planned to remain indoors, they said, so as not to offend people in the street. But it raised an interesting question: If all they wanted to do was drink at an Irish pub, why not just stay home?
"It's cheaper to come here than to go to Blackpool," said one of Mr.
Neley's friends, "and nobody knows us here."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/04/international/04PRAG.html
Here's an article on the UK low cost carrier market from the New York Times:
_____________________________________________
Travel Advisory: British Abroad, Staggering About
By SARAH LYALL
PRAGUE, Aug. 30 — The party started early on Friday, when EasyJet's 6:15 a.m. flight to Prague took off from Stansted Airport in Britain.
"We looked on the Internet and these were the flights that were available," said a 30-ish passenger whose breakfast, three cans of Kronenborg, was lined up in front of him.
"I thought we were going to Barcelona, but apparently Prague is quite a historical and cultural city." He snickered.
Meanwhile, his friend had already finished his own first round. "Bring the trolley to me with a big straw!" he shouted, then laid out his goals for the weekend: "Get drunk, I suppose; have some drinks and have a good time."
In the last few years, a new kind of British tourist, lured by cut-rate airlines whose flights can cost as little as $25 or less, has descended on Prague in unprecedented numbers, apparently with one goal in mind: to drink as much as possible. Wasted and aggressive, in drag or wearing only underpants, they spend weekends staggering in packs from bar to bar near Wenceslas Square. So troublesome have they become that some places refuse to serve Britons who arrive in large groups.
"It's disgusting," said Martina Tajdusova, who works in a hotel downtown. "They spend a lot of money here, but the British don't know when to stop, when is enough. They drink and drink and drink."
Tour groups encourage the business by portraying Prague as a center for cheap beer and loose women, and by organizing pub crawls whose participants set out to drink in as many places as possible before stumbling (if they can still stumble) on to the return flight home.
"As a friend of mine said the other day, the British treat every day as if it were New Year's Eve," said Ivo Lorenc, who rents out apartments to tourists, and who once cleaned up after a party of four Britons who stayed for two nights and left 100 empty bottles behind.
In other places, too, Britons are earning a reputation for bad behavior.
In Greece, several British tourists died this summer after bar fights or drunken pranks gone amiss. In one incident that was videotaped by a local businessman and provoked widespread disgust, three British women leading a tour group on Corfu performed flamboyant oral sex on fellow employees in front of a cheering crowd.
In Spain, where more than 600 Britons are in jail, many for offenses committed while on vacation, Lloret de Mar on the Costa Brava has been moved to ban drinking on the streets and beaches. Even hard-drinking Dublin, long a popular destination for British stag parties, began to discourage them in the Temple Bar neighborhood in 1998.
Officials in Prague are in something of a quandary: after a downturn in tourism after Sept. 11 and disastrous floods last year, they are loath to offend the free-spending British visitors, who make up more than 10 percent of the city's tourist trade.
"There's nothing shameful about spending a lot of time in a restaurant or a pub — we are grateful for every tourist," Hana Cermakova, a spokeswoman for the tourist authority, said. "It's true that we have had some complaints about groups of young people, but it's not just the British. It's not possible to divide troublemakers according to nation."
Perhaps not, but the British, particularly those on stag weekends, certainly stand out. They travel in groups. They wear unifying items of clothing, like custom-printed T-shirts or humorous costumes. Residents are still talking about the time a group of 53 women arrived from Wales, each one dressed like Tom Jones.
After the plane landed, the increasingly merry EasyJet passengers were unleashed into the greater community. One group, in Prague to celebrate the coming nuptials of 31-year-old Andy Briault, headed to Rocky O'Reilly's, an Irish bar and first on their print-out list of prime drinking establishments.
Playing drinking games and compelling Mr. Briault to change into an obscene shirt, the group was still on the pleasantly coherent side of drunk, although that would change after a few hours. The pub's owner, Robbie Norton, said that though there was some truth to the complaints, most groups were harmless.
Also, they are big business. For instance, he said, a party of 23 men drank 180 vodkas and 60 cans of Red Bull one Friday. "I know that sounds totally insane, but they came back and did the same thing on Saturday and the same thing on Sunday," he said.
Jonathan Weinstein, the Brooklyn-born owner of the Pricnyrez cafe, has his share of British horror stories.
Once, he said, a group of 20 or so mixed absinthe and vodka until they started throwing up, driving away even those customers who had endured their noise and obnoxiousness. Members of another group stripped and ran around in their underpants. At a bar nearby, he said, two dozen Britons, angry at being served warm beer, upended their glasses en masse and walked out without paying.
Once, he said, three separate groups — from Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham, each supporting their city's soccer team — arrived simultaneously and had to be separated when they began brawling drunkenly in the bathrooms.
Back at Rocky O'Reilly's, another stag party settled in. Having taken a bus tour of Prague that morning ("we're not just philistines," declared the groom, Marty Neley), they had concluded that it was time to get down to the real business of the weekend.
They planned to remain indoors, they said, so as not to offend people in the street. But it raised an interesting question: If all they wanted to do was drink at an Irish pub, why not just stay home?
"It's cheaper to come here than to go to Blackpool," said one of Mr.
Neley's friends, "and nobody knows us here."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/04/international/04PRAG.html