Development of ski infrastructure in Poland and the Podhale region on the basis of surveys

Abstract

In times of contemporary economic, social, technological, and cultural changes, what also changes is the way of spending free time. A feature of the modern leisure and recreation, and also the direction of their development is the diverse sporting activities undertaken outside of households. Furthermore, due to the greater prosperity and mobility of inhabitants in developed countries, wide access to specialized equipment and a wide range of services offered, tourist services have become more egalitarian, creating the phenomenon of mass tourism. Tourism is now one of the most dynamically developing sectors of economy in many countries in the world and has an increasing impact on local development through economic growth and an increase in employment. In Poland, in terms of popularizing active way of spending free time a progressive interest in winter sports has been observed. Skiing and snowboarding are becoming the preferred forms of spending time actively in winter. In response to the reported demand in Poland, more and more ski resorts are opened. Increased tourist traffic in winter, as well as new competition, forces the owners of ski resorts to undertake new investments, in order to meet the growing needs of users of such centers. Competitiveness in this sector causes the entrepreneurs to seek new and innovative solutions, which result in improvements and enhancements for users, thus offering more attractive ways of spending free time. The purpose of this paper is to assess the current state of ski infrastructure with complementary services and users’ expectations in the most popular ski resort in Poland, which is the Podhale Region. This is done on the basis of fieldwork carried out in said region. Also analyzed in the study are developmental barriers of ski resorts and expectations of users.