Tourism in Poland contributes to the country’s economy. The most popular sites include Warsaw, Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Lublin, Toruń, and Auschwitz. Other attractions include northeast Poland’s Mazury lake district and Białowieża Forest. Poland ’s main touristic products are: city and historical monuments sightseeng, business trips, qualified tourism, agrotourism, mountain hiking and others. Poland is the 14th most visited country by tourists.
Similarly to other European countries, the first Polish tourists were pilgrims traveling to shrines, both in Poland and abroad. True development of tourism began in the 19th century. The most popular regions were mountains, especially the Tatra Mountains, explored by Tytus Chałubiński. In 1873 the Polish Tatra Society and in 1909 the Polish Sightseeing Society were established to organize and develop tourism. The 19th century was also the time of the rapid appearance of spa resorts, mostly in Sudetes, Beskids and along the Baltic Sea coast, with some of them associated, since 1910, with the Polish Balneology Association. After Poland regained independence in 1918, Polish tourism boomed and was encouraged by the government. The first professional Polish tour operator, Orbis, was founded in Lwów in 1923, followed in 1937 by Gromada tourist organization and tour operator. After World War II all tourist organizations were nationalized by the new communist government. The Polish Tatra Society and Polish Sightseeing Society were combined into Polish Tourism-Sightseeing Society and most of the tourist infrastructure was handed over to the newly-created Workers Vacations Fund (FWP). Tourism was limited to the Comecon countries. This was the era of governmentally-founded tourism, characterised by mass but low-standard tourism. A typical sight was a holiday village composed of tiny bungalows belonging to one of the large state-owned companies. Holidays for children and teenagers were organized by Juventur. After the fall of communism much of the infrastructure was privatized, although many of the company-owned resorts were downgraded because of their unprofitability. The early 1990s saw the foundation of many new tour operators, the majority of which soon declared bankruptcy. Some of them prevailed, however, and strengthened their position on the market, being able to compete with multinational tour operators like TUI or Neckerman, which opened branches in Poland. Nowadays, Poland is a part of the global tourism market, with constantly increasing number of visitors, particularly after joining the European Union.
