The presented paper deals with the regionalization of the electoral support of the Czech Pirate Party (Pirates) in regional elections using methods and techniques of spatial data analysis. The aim is to answer the question whether the territorial distribution of Pirate electoral support allows this party to participate in governance at the regional level and thus influence the form of regional policy in individual regions. The results of the analysis show that the spatial distribution of Pirates’ electoral support in regional elections differed quite significantly not only from the pattern found in the elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament and elections to the European Parliament, but also between individual regional elections. This suggests the current lack of anchorage of Pirates’ electoral support in regional politics, but at the same time, it may have its origins in the second-order character of regional elections and the candidacy of many local and regional entities in regional elections. On the other hand, the results of the regional elections in 2020 meant that the Pirates received seats in all regional councils, but especially in nine of the thirteen regions they joined the regional government (similarly to two years earlier when they joined government of capital city of Prague), gaining the opportunity to influence, with regard to its priorities, the form of regional governance in most Czech regions.

Tourism industry, in general, and rural tourism specifically is often promoted as a go-to solution to the various problems that rural regions and communities are currently facing. In Slovakia, several policies have been formulated and implemented in order to harness this potential in reality. The main aim of this contribution is to (via an in-depth case study of a tourism cluster in Liptov region in Slovakia) find out the current state of the policy instruments being implemented to promote the development of rural tourism as well as barriers that hinder the effectiveness of said instruments. By means of questionnaire survey and interviews with relevant stakeholders (accommodation providers, representatives of local self-government and support organizations at the local and regional level) we identified both financial and institutional hurdles, but also a difference in opinions of different actors concerned.

The research question is if an increase in pandemics corresponds with significant changes in mobility (supported by the public stay-at-home orders and willing decrease of movements) by the spheres of economic activities (parks (leisure time spending), grocery stores, workplaces, pharmacies, transportation stations, retail, recreation, and home) in the Czech Republic. The additional research question is if this pattern correlates with a high decrease in salaries and employment. This paper aims to answer these research questions. This research applies the graphical analysis and fixed-effects regression methods for high-frequency data for answering these questions. The main result is that an increase in the number of infected people significantly decreases human mobility and increases their visits to pharmacies and staying at homes. At the same time, the government support measures can be effective, because there is no huge drop in salaries and employment in the Czech Regions. This pattern contradicts the expectations based on the US patterns. The output of the regression analysis is that 2-5 thousand new infections a day can paralyze mobility in the entire region.

According to the results from OECD countries, the position of the tourism sector in Slovakia has been unfavourable for a long time. Tourism in Slovakia is managed in a decentralized way, which is legally and financially supported in certain forms. Support is largely conditional on cooperation. Such an example is the support of the creation and activities of regional tourism organizations. In this paper, we will examine the economic significance and justification of cooperation among entities that are members of regional tourism organizations, by determining the relationship between the number of these organizations and the amount of revenue divided into four categories at the regional level. In this work we used multiple regression and correlation analysis. Based on their results, we identified the performance of companies according to the categories of achieved revenues. The results suggest that the most productive companies are companies with revenues ranging from 100000-500000 Euros per year. The paper also offers a framework of questions for further research related to sector governance, as well as an awareness of the importance and significance of cooperation.

The new programming period 2021 – 2017 brings a new philosophy of integration - in the emergence of integrated territorial strategies (ITS) and their financing through integrated territorial investments (ITI). The aim of the paper is, based on the above reasons, to evaluate the project activities of the microregion Termál considering the implemented projects in the programming periods 2007 – 2013 and 2014 – 2020 (ex-post evaluation) as well as the readiness of the area for financial resources in the programming period 2021 – 2027 (ex-ante evaluation). In terms of methodology, we used the comparative analysis of various information sources (mainly Programs of economic development and social development of municipalities, microregion Termál and databases of the Department of Strategic Activities of the Municipality of Nitra Region) and standard statistical and cartographic methods leading to data processing and visualization. The results provide information on the diversification of obtained and expected funds at individual municipalities and the whole territory. While in both previous programming periods, the focus was mainly on building social and technical infrastructure. At the beginning of the new programming period, expectations mainly focused on increasing territorial competitiveness by supporting industries using local resources and sustainable smart energy communities.