4.1. Poland
Poland is said to be a country with a high level of tourist attractiveness. In 2019, over 20 million foreigners visited the country, which gives it the 19th place in the global ranking (UN WTO). Outbound tourism revenues are estimated at
$16.8 billion. The number of domestic trips amounts to approximately 48 million, and tourist expenses are estimated at approximately 31 billion PLN (approx.
$8 billion). The number of overnight stays is 18.7 million (
Eurostat 2020b). The total number of beds in Poland is approximately 825.5 thousand. Between 2005 and 2019, the above-mentioned values were characterized by a constant and high growth dynamics. It should be emphasized that tourism balance, i.e., surplus of revenues from incoming foreign tourism in relation to Poles’ expenditure on outbound tourism, is favorable.
Table 1 shows the average disposable income of Poles, which, despite the systematic increase, is below 50% of the income in the European Union and is also lower than the income of Slovaks.
Poles’ tourist consumption is dominated by short-term (weekend) trips around and across the country. In 2018, it was about 28.9 million trips. It increased by 4.5% in comparison to 2017. The number of long-term (holiday) trips increased to 18.8 million, which constituted an increase of 14.5%. On the other hand, the number of foreign trips was 12.7 million and it increased by 6.6%. In 2018, there was an increase in total expenditure in the tourism economy by 6.8% and a stable share of tourism economy in the creation of GDP at the level of 5.9% (MSiT).
Gross tourist activity of Poles in domestic traffic amounts to approx. 1.24, which is about twice as high as that of Slovaks. The indicator means that each Pole goes on a tourist trip in the country more than once a year, or there are about 5 domestic trips per year for four Poles. About 20 million Poles travel for private purposes.
Table 2 presents the net tourist activity rate.
In 2018, 61.9% of Poles went on a trip at least once a year. It is about 8.8 percentage points more than in 2014, but 2.5 percentage points less than the average in the 27 EU member states.
The formal and legal framework of the functioning of the tourism market in Poland is determined by the legislative bodies. The legal system in Poland is adjusted to the rules in force in the European Union, particularly to the Directive of the Parliament and Council 2015/2302 of 25 November 2015 on package travel and related travel services [Directive].
Figure 1 shows the structure of entities that form the national tourism policy system.
The entity responsible at the central level for tourism policy is the minister responsible for tourism—until November 2019, it was the Minister of Sport and Tourism, currently the Minister of Development, Labor, and Technology. The basic competences of the minister include: Implementation of tasks related to creating development and directions of tourism promotion; development, implementation, and monitoring of tourism programs; carrying out works related to state’s tourism development; programming and conducting matters related to tourists’ safety; conducting the issues related to the creation of tourist market regulation mechanisms, particularly in the field of entrepreneurship development, quality improvement, and assessment of the functioning of the tourism economy, supervision over the national tourist organization, cooperation with the units that educate staff for tourism, carrying out activities in the field of tourism support from the EU structural funds. Practically, none of the tasks of the office refers to the issues of supporting the demand, except for:
Supporting activities for the leisure of children and youth, which is also the task of the minister responsible for physical education and sport;
consumer rights protection, which is a general instrument that regulates relations on the tourist service market.
Other central offices, including in particular: The health resort in the field of spa tourism, by co-financing stays on health stays in spas and the national education department supporting tourism for children and youth, especially school tourism, along with the so-called “Schools in Nature” for children and young people who live in areas of the country in health hazard conditions play a complementary role in government activities related to the policy of supporting tourist demand.
The Polish Tourist Organization has limited competences as an entity in the regulatory sphere. Its basic functions relate to tasks in the real sphere as an entity that implements tasks for the tourist destination of Poland, concerning, apart from marketing activities undertaken on both foreign and domestic markets, initiating, giving opinions, and supporting plans for development and modernization of tourism infrastructure, as well as cooperation with regional and local tourist organizations.
Local government units of all three levels perform both regulatory and real functions on the tourism market. Local government is obliged to implement tasks for the benefit of tourism for children and youths. The task is carried out at the level of educational institutions by the commune and powiat self-governments, as founding institutions for primary and secondary education, respectively, and comes down to the organization by the above-mentioned institutions and possibly subsidizing the Schools in Nature. The activities are also carried out by scouts and youth organizations as part of school tourism. The Polish Society of Youth Hostels plays a special role for the promotion of school and youth tourism. The organization exploits accommodation facilities and offer services at affordable prices for both tourist groups and for the possibility of family tourism.
Activities in the field of social policy, implemented at the level of enterprises and institutions, are forms of co-financing as part of corporate social benefits funds that apply to organization of leisure in company facilities for employees and their families, and organization of recreation for employees’ children, subsidies for holidays as part of school tourism. The latter is not very effective as the money received by employees is not always spent on tourism. Social assistance for employees is also offered by trade union organizations.
The above information proves that the activities of state authorities in the area of direct impact on tourist activity in Poland are significantly limited. It is also confirmed by the records of the strategic documents in force in the field of tourism economy in the European Union financing perspectives for 2007–2013 and 2014–2020.
For many years, there has been a discussion in Poland on the introduction of common assistance in the field of domestic tourism and, at the same time, supporting the tourism economy through a tourist voucher. Despite many years of discussion, until 2020 it was not possible to develop a common position of entities from the tourism policy and the tourism industry and to secure public funds for this purpose. Such activities allow them to support the demand directly, and above all to support tourism economy entities, where such a voucher could be redeemed. The tourist benefit financed by the voucher has a significant advantage, as it allows voucher holders to choose the service that suits them best (
Kopeć 2018).
It was not until the deepening crisis of the tourism industry caused by the COVID-19 pandemic that the Polish government decided to launch the instrument, under the name of the Polish Tourist Voucher. The instrument is assumed to provide financial support to Polish families, through means of a holiday subsidy for every child before 18 years of age in the amount of 500 PLN (i.e., approximately 110 EURO) and to establish a double amount for disabled children. The voucher covers the costs of hotel services or tourist events by a tourist entrepreneur or a public benefit organization in Poland. The tourist voucher may be redeemed between 1 August 2020 and 31 March 2022 in several thousand entities of the tourism economy. The subsidy for summer or winter holidays was given to around 2.4 million families with over 6 million children (
Tourist Voucher 2020). The instrument is characterized by all social policy activities. However, in practice its main goal is to save the condition of functioning of the tourism industry during the epidemic.
4.2. Slovakia
Slovakia is becoming an increasingly attractive country for tourists. The statistics have proven a systematic increase in the number of tourists since 2014. In 2018, the tourist traffic rate exceeded 5.5 million tourists, 60% of whom are domestic tourists. The positive trend manifests itself both in domestic and inbound foreign tourism. A 48% increase has been noticed in comparison with 2014. According to the statistics, the number of foreigners has also been systematically growing since 2014, and it has increased by over 50% compared to 2018. Tourism income in 2018 reached 3.1 billion euros. The share of direct tourism economy in GDP is estimated at 2.4%, and, in the case of the broadly understood tourism economy, the share in GDP is approximately 6.1% of GDP. Tourism economy is largely focused on servicing tourist traffic from economically developed European countries. Potential of tourism economy is characterized by the size of the accommodation base, measured by the number of places, which is 206.1 thousand. In 2017, Slovakia recorded the largest number of overnight stays so far, which exceeded the amount of 14 million (Slovenská agentúra).
Table 3 presents the average disposable income of Slovaks, which proves a constant increase and is over 20% higher than the level in Poland and 10.5 percentage points higher in relation to the average in the European Union. Despite the increase in the analyzed figures, the incomes of Slovaks constitute approximately 56.9% of the average income of the inhabitants of the entire European Union.
Today, Slovaks travel just like an average EU citizen. However, the majority of their trips take place within the country. On average, Slovaks make three trips a year, one of which is a trip abroad. At the same time, they spend less money on tourism than the inhabitants of Western Europe. Slovaks are believed to spend two times less money abroad than foreign tourists spend in Slovakia. There are still a large number of people in Slovakia who cannot afford to go on a trip. According to
Eurostat (
2020b), more than 45% of the Slovak population do not have sufficient funds to pay for a longer holiday of at least one week. About 3.4 million Slovaks travel for private purposes.
Table 4 presents tourist activity of Slovaks.
In 2018, almost ¾ of Slovaks went on a tourist trip, i.e., 19.7 percentage points more than in 2014 and 8.8 percentage points more than the average in the European Union countries. Domestic tourism has increased by more than 80%, and the number of tourists coming to Slovakia from abroad has increased from 1.4 million in 2004 to 2.3 million in 2018. It has taken place since Slovakia joined the European Union.
The Slovak tourism policy system presented in
Figure 2 indicates the most important entities that are responsible for the implementation of activities for the development of tourism, and therefore including aspects of social tourism policy in Slovakia.
Until 2011, at the national level, the authority that was responsible for the development of tourism, including the development in the social aspect, was the Ministry of Economy. However, since 2011 it has been the Ministry of Transport, Construction and Regional Development, which results from the fact that the Slovak government has included tourism as a priority area in the system of social and economic policy of the state. The tourism sector of the Ministry is divided into two departments: The Tourism Strategy and Policy Department, and the Tourism Co-operation and Co-ordination Department, with responsibilities including: Creation of conditions for the development of tourism; formulation, implementation, and monitoring of policy; preparation of legislative regulations concerning tourism; provision of comprehensive statistical data on the development of tourism; and representing the country’s interests in international tourism organizations. The Ministry’s task is to coordinate and control the activities of the Slovak Tourism Agency, cooperation with research organizations, cooperation with the Council of the Slovak government in the field of coordinated and uniform promotion of Slovakia abroad, foreign cooperation, and fulfillment of agreements resulting from Slovakia’s membership in EU and international organizations.
The Slovak Tourist Board (STB) is a government agency funded from the state budget and responsible for promoting and marketing the Slovak Republic as a tourism destination. It markets tourism at the national level, provides information on travel opportunities in the Slovak Republic, promotes a positive image of the country as a tourism destination abroad, supports the sale of tourism products, and implements the EU structural funds in the tourism industry. The STB has eight national branch offices and six foreign offices located in the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Austria, the Russian Federation, and Hungary.
At the regional level, tourism responsibilities are devolved to eight self-governing bodies in the regional governments: Brastislava, Trnava, Nitra, Trencin, Zilina, Bankska Bystrica, Presov, and Kosice—and municipalities and towns also play an important role in the development of tourism in their areas. Tourism associations as professional entities also contribute at local and regional levels, primarily in the fields of quality improvement, expanding the range of tourism products and services, professional training, the application of quality standards, and the communication of best practices.
Another public body of social tourism in Slovakia is the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Family, which provides financial support, including subsidies for recreational stays for unemployed Slovak citizens that are recipients of pension benefits. This support is also provided by the Confederation of Trade Unions of the Slovak Republic.
The entities that are indirectly involved in the implementation of tourism policy, mainly the social one in Slovakia, are also national non-governmental organizations and associations dealing with the improvement of the living conditions of Slovaks struggling with difficulties, e.g., the Big Family Club (Klub mnohodetných rodín), the Age Aid Forum (Fórum pre pomoc starším), and the Youth Council of Slovakia (Rada mládeže Slovenska).
Two large hotel chains should also be indicated when mentioning the entities involved in the development of social tourism in Slovakia. The first one is the joint stock company HOREZZA, the main shareholder of which is the state. The company’s name is an abbreviation of “Hotel, entertainment and medical facility”. The company has a portfolio of 4 4-star hotels/sanatoriums available to every social group. The network offers reduced prices for soldiers and veterans as well as for the disadvantaged (low income). In 2017–2019, veterans and their families got a 25% discount in hotels of the chain. The service included accommodation and breakfast and free access to swimming pools, wellness and spa services, and free treatment (for stays longer than 2 days—for one disease, longer than 5 days—two).
The second of the hotel chains which focuses on social tourism is the largest and oldest hotel chain—SOREA. It is a privately owned entity founded in 1993, with 11 hotels and a total capacity of over 3000 beds. The network packages include holiday stays, e.g., for skiing, spa tourism, and conference tourism. Most of the guests of SOREA hotels are domestic tourists (over 50%). The SOREA network in cooperation with the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Family has created special weekly packages for seniors, for which the government grants EUR 50 per stay (until 2012 it was EUR 70). Every Slovak senior (60+) can apply for such a subsidy once a year only.
A special package for Slovak seniors includes 6 nights with full board included. Another private entity, focused on supporting youth tourist trips, is CKM 2000 Travel. The main mission of this entity since its creation (1999) has been to improve the quality of life of young people, students, and teachers by offering special discounts on railway journeys, coach and air travel, organization of student exchange, work, and study programs, summer schools, and individual tourism. CKM is a member of EYCA (European Youth Card Association), IYHF (International Youth Hostel Federation), and IATA (International Air Transport Association) (
https://www.ckm.sk).
Social tourism in Slovakia became a topic of interest of the country’s authorities during the planning period of the tourism policy for 2007–2013. The contribution of tourism to social development became one of the principles of the Slovak tourism policy outlined in the documents “National Tourism Policy” and the “New Strategy for Tourism Development in Slovakia in 2007–2013” and the Act on Support for Tourism (No. 91/2010 Coll.). Then, holiday vouchers, as a tool that enables access to tourism for any social group that experienced poor conditions, were announced to be introduced.
The aim of the tool was to stimulate the demand for domestic tourism, increase the accessibility of tourism to Slovak citizens, especially to socially disadvantaged groups, and to increase utilization rates of Slovak accommodation facilities. However, in spite of the government’s efforts, the vouchers were not introduced due to the negative attitude of the Association of Towns and Municipalities of Slovakia (ZMOS), which presented their remark on the tax aspects.
One of the tools that support social tourism in Slovakia aimed at primary and secondary school students are subsidies for the School in Nature and ski courses. Since 1948, in the territory of today’s Slovakia, children’s stays away from their place of permanent residence were organized for several days. The purpose of these trips was to support the health and increase the physical fitness of children from large cities with polluted air. Initially, they were four-week stays, then they were initially shortened to three weeks, and from 1990 to 5–10 days. Since 2016, these stays are partially subsidized from the state budget, which is guaranteed by law (No. 597/2003 Coll.).
Today, the Ministry of Education, Science, Research, and Sports of the Slovak Republic (MEDU) awards a grant of EUR 100 or EUR 150 (in less developed regions) per student. A 1–4 grade student may receive a grant to support School in Nature once only. Support for the ski course (150 EURO per student) is also provided under the above-mentioned activities. The fund, in turn, is intended to be used by primary school students in grades 5–9 and for secondary school students (
Table 5).
A tool that supports social tourism in Slovakia, aimed at retired people, is the state subsidy for co-financing convalescent care stays. According to the provisions of the Act No. 544/2010 on subsidies at the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Family of the Slovak Republic (MLSAF), only a retired person who does not receive income from an employment contract or from business and other activities may be given a partial reimbursement. Most supported stays last a week with full board provided in several objects of accommodation. Quota of the subsidy for a partial reimbursement of the costs of the stay is EUR 50 per person a year.
The latest instrument of tourism policy of Slovakia created to support development of social tourism are holiday vouchers introduced by the government on 1 January 2019. The government of the Slovak Republic announced introduction of the tool in 2010. Holiday vouchers are benefits aimed at supporting domestic tourism in Slovakia. They can only be used within the country for a minimum stay of two nights. The coupon may be given to a person employed at the company for over 2 years, provided that the employer hires more than 49 people. The employer is obliged to reimburse 55% of the employee’s holiday expenses, given that the total amount of the grant may not exceed 275 EUR. A voucher may be given once a year. It can as well be used by spouses and children. The effect of voucher introduction is already noticeable in the statistics of tourist traffic in Slovakia. The number of overnight stays performed by domestic tourists increased by 15.1% per year only, which was the highest increase in the whole European Union.