AT BIG Sister, which calls itself the world's biggest internet brothel, a middle-aged man selected a prostitute by pressing an electronic menu on a flat-screen TV to review the age, hair colour, weight and languages spoken by the women on offer.
Once he had chosen an 18-year-old brunette, he put on a mandatory terry-cloth robe and proceeded to one of the brothel's lurid theme rooms: an Alpine suite decorated with foam rubber mountains covered with fake snow.
Nearby, in the brothel's cramp
ed control room, two young technicians controlled dozens of hidden cameras that would film his performance and stream it live onto Big Sister's website.
Customers can have sex for free at Big Sister, in return for allowing the brothel to film their exploits.
But even with this financial incentive, Carl Borowitz, a 26-year-old Moravian computer engineer who is Big Sister's marketing manager, lamented that the global financial crisis had diminished the number of sex tourists coming to Prague.
"Sex is a steady demand, because everyone needs it, and it used to be taboo, which made a service like ours all the more attractive," said Borowitz, who looks more like Harry Potter than Larry Flynt. "But the problem today is that there is too much competition and our clients don't have as much disposable income as before."
In the Czech Republic, where prostitution operates in a legal grey zone, the sex industry is big business, generating nearly ?400m in annual revenues, 60% of which is derived from foreign visitors, according to Mag Consulting, a Prague-based research firm that studies the industry.
Big Sister is not the only brothel suffering the effects of a battered global economy. While the world's oldest profession may also be one of its most recession-proof businesses, brothel owners in Europe and the United States say the global financial crisis is hurting a once lucrative industry.
Egbert Krumeich, the manager of Artemis, Berlin's largest brothel, said that in November, usually peak season for the sex trade, revenues were down by 20%. In Reno, Nevada, the famed Mustang Ranch recently laid off 30% of its staff, citing a decline in high-spending clients.
Big Sister is not struggling as much as some of its more traditional rivals, since its revenues are largely derived from the ?30 a month its 10,000 clients pay to gain access to its site.
But Borowitz said Big Sister hoped to offset a 15% drop in revenues over the past quarter by expanding into the United States.
The brothel also produces cable TV shows that air on Sky Italia and Britain's Television X, as well as DVDs like World Cup Love Truck.
Ester, an 18-year-old prostitute at Big Sister, said big-spending clients had diminished, but she was still earning nearly ?2,000 a month – enough to pay the rent and purchase her favourite Louis Vuitton purses. "The reason to do this is for the money," she said, after gyrating half-naked on a pole. Being filmed, she added, made her feel more like an actress than a sex object.
Since the fall of communism in 1989, the Czech Republic has become a major transit and destination country for women and girls trafficked from countries further east like Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Moldova, according to the police.
For nearly 20 years, tens of thousands of sex tourists have streamed into Prague, the pristinely beautiful Czech capital, drawn by inexpensive services, an atmosphere of anonymity for customers and a liberal population tolerant of adultery. According to Mag Consulting, 14% of Czech men admit to having sex with prostitutes, against a European Union average of 10%.
Dozens of cheap flights to Prague have also ensured a steady flow of bachelor parties from across Europe, with multiple daily flights from Britain alone.
Jaromir Beranek, an analyst with Mag Consulting, said that when Germany and Britain – the two countries sending the most tourists to Prague – began to stagnate, sex tourism also suffered. The strength of the Czech crown against the euro, lower spending power and competition from lower-cost sex capitals like Riga and Krakow were threatening one of the country's most thriving sectors. "If you ski and there is no snow, you stay home," Beranek said. "The same applies to sex."
Many Czechs are more than happy to see Prague shrug off its reputation as one of the world's top 20 sex destinations. But some in the hotel industry are so alarmed by the drop in tourists that they are lobbying the government to legalise the trade, in the hope that it will help lure more clients.
While some critics have warned that legalisation would effectively transform the Czech state into the country's biggest pimp, the Czech government is considering whether to emulate the Netherlands and Germany by regulating prostitution like any other industry. It is considering passing legislation by the end of the year that would require the Czech Republic's estimated 10,000 prostitutes to register with local authorities.
Dzamila Stehlikova, a minister from the Green Party, who is shepherding the bill through parliament, argued that by forcing the business out into the open, it would make it harder for human traffickers to thrive, while helping to ensure mandatory health check-ups for prostitutes.
Not everyone is enthusiastic, not least the prostitutes themselves, who say that being issued with prostitution identification cards would further stigmatise them.
