Reports SLOVAKIA
Degreesof separation
Hard economic times in Slovakia have hit operators both in terms of player revenue and through increased government taxation
Associated most typically with its coupling with the Czech Republic, Slovakia is often a forgotten country nestled quietly and comfortably in the centre of Europe.
At first glance it would seem that the country has little to shout home about. However dig deeper and this little country is full of surprises.
For one, Slovakia has the highest level of foreign investment in Europe and thanks to several big motor manufacturing plants located here, it is also the biggest car producer per capita in the world.
It has bred tennis champions (Martina Hingis) and artists (Andy Warhol) and even Miss WonderBra (Adriana Karembeu), who is also of Slovakian descent. Say no more.
Slovakia is a rugged and mountainous landlocked country huddled in between Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and the Ukraine and almost 40 per cent of its territory is covered by forest
Although Slovakia is one of Eastern Europe’s less popular tourist countries it has been welcoming an increasing number of visitors over the last decade. Its tourism industry has grown remarkably since independence and by the late 1990s the country was receiving around 500,000 visitors each year.
In 2008 this had risen to just over four million tourists of which 1.7 million were foreign visitors and 2.3 million were domestic tourists.
Slovakia saw around €1.7m received from the tourism sector and there are currently
Itwas expected that Slovakiawould exceed its annual
three per cent limit by the end of 2009 and itwas also predicted that
Slovakiawould see public deficit of
around six per cent ofGDP at the end of 2009,whilst
consolidationwas
expected to begin in 2010 to reduce it to
under three per cent by 2011 or 2012.
around 3,430 accommodation establishments in Slovakia ranging from hotels to cottages to camping and over 58,000 rooms available.
The majority of visitors come from neighbouring Czech (537,000) followed by visitors from Poland, Germany, Hungary and the UK (66,000).
Tourists either spend their time on outdoor recreational pursuits from visiting national parks, forests and the mountains to arts and culture and architectural sightseeing.
The tourism industry is managed and funded under the Ministry of Economy whilst the Slovakian Tourist Board works with around 30 of the 100 or so tourism associations in the country.
The dominant feature of Slovakia is the mountain range known as the High Tatras, which borders Poland. The Tatras are made up of resistant granite and crystalline shale rock and is the highest mountain range in Slovakia. Many of the Slovak lakes are of glacier origin and almost all of them are situated in the Tatra peaks area.
Meanwhile, the biggest river which flows to Slovakia from Germany and Austria is the Danube and it creates a state boundary with Austria and Hungary.
Slovakia is well known for its healing thermal spas and the whole of the country is studded with mineral springs although the biggest supplies are those in the river grounds of the Danube such as the Golden Wheat Island (Zitny Ostrov).
The country is also very rich in mineral waters and some 1,200 springs can be found here and many of them are thermal (with a temperature of over 20ºc).
The country is made up of eight self-
governing regions – Banskobystricky, Bratislavsky, Kosicky, Nitriansky, Presovsky, Trenciansky, Trnavsky and Zilinsky – plus 79 districts, 138 towns and 2891 municipalities.
The capital, Bratislava, or Beauty on the Danube as it is also referred, has a population of 425,000 and is situated in the south west of Slovakia and stretches on both banks of the Danube and in the foothills of the Little Carpathian Mountains.
It has always been a commercial centre due to its position, although despite its
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