Britons flock to Eastern Europe

According to statistics released this week by the Civil Aviation Authority, the number of Britons visiting the Czech Republic alone rose by 59 per cent (an additional 770,000) last year. The increase in visits to other newcomers to the EU - including Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Baltic States - almost doubled. A good portion of weekend travellers are said to be stag parties.

In addition to cheap flights, British visitors are attracted to the east partly out of a sense of adventure and partly because hotel rooms and meals are still very reasonably priced.

Many of the countries - in particular the Czech Republic - are also famous for the high quality (and low price) of their beers. Prague, Tallinn and Vilnius are already well established on the stag-party network.

According to Neil Taylor, director of Regent Holidays, a specialist in trips to eastern Europe, many travellers are also beginning to venture beyond the capitals to discover relatively unspoilt areas of countryside.

"Undoubtedly the fact that these countries are now part of the EU has given people confidence to explore, and when they do, they find that standards have really risen in the region," he said.

Manchester Council trys to tame stag parties

The next time a group of British lager louts descends on Prague for a weekend of rowdy drinking, one local UK government hopes they will listen to a little advice on how to behave. The Manchester City Council plans to draw up a list of recommendations advising British travelers to other European cities, particularly Prague, on how they should act. Something of a code of conduct, the list will include suggestions about personal safety, such as minding your wallet, responsible drinking, and what City Councilor Keith Whitmore called "personal dignity."

"It's not exactly dignified if you can't remember what you're doing," said Whitmore, who proposed the idea.

However, some boozing British travelers in Prague aren't convinced a government-issued list would change their behavior and questioned why Manchester should have a say in their weekend activities.

"People will do whatever they want to do," said Paul Forrest, 31, who arrived from Sheffield, England, for his friend's stag party last weekend, kicking off the festivities at Rocky O'Reilly's. "We've already got a bad reputation."

The British government is aggressively trying to shake that reputation. About a year ago, Prime Minister Tony Blair cautioned that binge drinking could become the "new British disease," and the government has since issued a plan for curbing the habit.

In a recent meeting, the Manchester City Council's social strategy committee vowed to determine just how much this drinking problem seeps beyond the borders to other European cities. Prague became the natural first step, since budget airlines have made weekend trips from the UK highly affordable, luring more Brits for jaunts of binge drinking and tomfoolery.

"There has been an increase in hen and stag parties and drinking too much and getting into trouble and giving the British a rather bad name abroad," Whitmore said. "Prague is certainly one of the cities that has suffered."

Edinburgh Tourist Tax proposed. Stags and hens bring £1.66 billion and lots of vomit

We're often told how much all these foreign visitors bring to the local economy in Edinburgh: £1.66 billion is the latest estimate. But those of us without a vested interest in hotels, bars, restaurants and souvenir shops don't get to see much of that money. Somehow, it ends up costing us £1.8 million in direct support to the festivals alone, plus the cost of sweeping up all that stag and hen vomit, festival flyers, tourist guides and the like.
So hats off to Edinburgh Council leader Donald Anderson for proposing a tourist tax. A couple of pounds a night on a hotel bed isn't going to cripple the tourist industry and the result would be that - instead of local residents subsidising the business of visitors - they would benefit from it.