Tourist management in national parks in the Czech-German borderland: Bohemian ‘Switzerland’ and Saxon ‘Switzerland’

In the article tourist management in two national parks in the Czech-German borderland are being compared, namely Bohemian ‘Switzerland’ (also known as Czech ‘Switzerland’) and Saxon ‘Switzerland’. Situated on either side of the state border, they feature the same type of geographical environment. Transport accessibility, transborder links and the hiking trail network are analyzed using methodology sourced from graph theory. The result of the analyses is a classification of tourist hubs and tourist centers, as well as an indication of the main directions of tourist flow. The German national park is decidedly more accessible but with a detrimental effect on the natural environment primarily due to its fragmentation by a dense network of tourist trails. In both parks trails enter the core zone (in theory a strict protection area) but this occurs on a larger scale on the German side. In the Czech national park a greater number of positive examples of managing tourist movements can be identified. Additionally, larger areas managed for dispersion, or from which tourists are generally excluded, are located there.