Foreign tourists on hiking trails in Polish mountains

Abstract

The paper presents some insights into the topic of foreign tourists visiting Polish mountains, especially for hiking tours. The author used a method of combining the data gathered from the questionnaire sent to all operators of Polish mountain huts with the analysis of statistical data of PTTK Wisla and a short survey conducted among Czech and Slovak tourists. The result of the study confirmed that the number of foreign tourists participating in hiking in Poland is small and that they are generally unknown as a group. Also, the structure of this group is a bit surprising, as the number of German tourists is comparable or even higher than those from Slovakia and the Czech Republic sharing the same mountain ranges with Poland. Managers of mountain huts do not make much of an effort to attract tourists from abroad. Their main advertising is conducted through their web pages in English. As a result, Slovak and Czech tourists do not perceive the Polish mountains as a good place to hike. There is little consensus as to the reasons for this situation. The responses from the mountain huts managers were inconsistent and inconclusive. Generally, they agree that Polish mountains are attractive site of tourist activity. However, it turns out that the tourists prefer hiking in their own countries where they can find even more attractive and developed areas.