*4.1. The Attractiveness of Municipalities and Real Tourism Investments*

The attractiveness indicators assigned to individual municipalities were divided into classes from 1 to 6 using Jenks Natural Breaks Classification optimization method (Table 2).


**Table 2.** Jenks natural breaks classification a synthetic indicator of investment attractiveness.

\* Minimum total squared deviation, \*\* squared deviation, \*\*\* goodness of variance fit. Source: Author's own elaboration.

Table 3 presents the potential for the development of tourism in Poland in structural terms for the three groups of municipalities covered by the research. The total number of administrative units examined is 2478, including 302 urban municipalities, 628 urban-rural municipalities and 1548 rural municipalities. The conducted research shows that about 14% of municipalities have a very high level of investment attractiveness. This group is dominated by cities (59%) and urban-rural municipalities (24%), while rural municipalities constitute only 17%. In the lower rating category, i.e., high and quite high, rural municipalities already achieve a significantly higher share, 44% and 52% respectively.



Source: Author's own elaboration.

The high investment attractiveness of urban municipalities in relation to rural municipalities is the result of very good technical, social infrastructure and administrative climate (Table 4). An undoubted attribute of rural municipalities is their natural values, which were rated quite high.


**Table 4.** Assessment of potential investment microclimate by municipalities.

\* Average value of potential investment indicators. Source: Author's own elaboration.

The geographical area does not maintain continuity with respect to values and tourist attractions. Diverse terrain and the intensity of the scale of socio-economic phenomena caused a lack of territorial cohesion and the formation of different development conditions for tourism. This is particularly evident in the case of the spatial distribution of the results of measuring investment attractiveness (Figure 3).

**Figure 3.** Potential investment attractiveness of Polish municipalities. Source: Author's own elaboration.

The obtained results of the spatial distribution of potential investment attractiveness can be related to the characteristic tourist regions of Poland. The first group are municipalities located in the coastal region, which is a narrow strip of land adjacent to the Baltic Sea. These municipalities have valuable assets in the form of beaches with access to the sea. Specific natural conditions mean that recreational tourism in these municipalities takes place mainly during summer. The exceptions are seaside resorts, which operate throughout the entire calendar year. Investments in the coastal belt are concentrated in close proximity to the beaches. This causes a high concentration of tourist traffic and opens opportunities for investing in semi-touristic types of economic activity. In the coastal belt, in addition to the typical accommodation base, other services, like gastronomy, entertainment and

transport, are developed. That is why coastal municipalities with a high tourist function indicator are often considered some of the most economically developed rural municipalities in Poland [48]. Local taxes and fees supplying the budgets of local government units provide great investment opportunities, which significantly increase the quality of infrastructure and at the same time, the level of investment attractiveness.

Another group of municipalities with above-average conditions for tourism investments are the municipalities of the Pomeranian, Masurian and Greater Poland Lakelands. In this case, the main factor increasing the investment value of these municipalities is the post-glacial landscape, whose main forms are lakes, moraine hills and forest complexes. The municipalities located within the discussed Lakelands do not have such advanced tourist infrastructure as it is the case with coastal municipalities. In their area, mainly seasonal tourism is developed in summer with the main forms being leisure and adventure tourism (sailing, diving, canoeing, etc.).

The most attractive municipalities in the southern part of Poland are located in three main regions: Małopolska Upland with the Swi ˛ ´ etokrzyskie Mountains and the Kraków-Cz ˛estochowa Upland, the Sudetes Region, including the oldest mountain ranges in Poland and the Carpathian Mountains. An important investment asset of these municipalities is the quite long season of tourist traffic, which covers most days of the year. In summer, they have good conditions for adventure tourism (hiking, trekking, extreme tourism, cycling, speleology), leisure and cognitive tourism. Whereas, in winter, the terrain and heavy snowfall create good conditions for winter sports, mainly skiing.

Due to their specificity, cities have different location values referring to historical, cultural, natural and economic conditions. These conditions determine the development of various forms of tourism. Depending on the scale and variety of conditions, there can be distinguished cities with individual tourist specializations, as well as cities with a bundle of tourist attractions and development opportunities for many forms of tourism. An appropriate investment climate does not yet condition real tourism investments in cities. A set of specific conditions and location factors determines the potential investment attractiveness and provides incentives for real investments of the tourism industry. However, the real investment attractiveness of cities shows an important aspect related to the level of investment and allows assessing to what extent investors are interested in a given location and the capital employed is able to generate added value.

The investment level indicator and the way it had changed in the years 2012–2017 were used to assess the level of investment. The spatial distribution of this indicator shows that the location of tourist companies is characterized by strong spatial concentration. Almost half of the accommodation sites in Poland (49%) are located in cities. Since 2012, 56% of all new accommodation sites in Poland have been created in cities (Table 5).


**Table 5.** Accommodation infrastructure by municipalities.

Source: Author's own elaboration.

When compared to rural areas, cities are much better equipped with basic technical and social infrastructure. They also have numerous historical, cultural, and sports facilities, as well as gastronomic establishments and entertainment venues. Furthermore, they generate the greatest number of cultural events, festivals and large concerts that enrich the tourist offer. In the group of municipalities with the highest level of attractiveness, there were large cities performing the functions of economic, social and cultural centers, as well as having a rich past. In addition, they are also cities that combine many urban functions with the function of leisure tourism. Examples are cities located by the sea: Swinouj´ ´ scie, Kołobrzeg, Darłowo, Ustka, Gdynia, Sopot, Gda ´nsk, and cities located in the mountains, such as: Szklarska Por˛eba, Polanica-Zdrój, Karpacz, Szczyrk, Swierad ´ ów-Zdrój. Economic functions cause these cities to often be the destination of business trips and the area of development of the Meetings Industry. Due to the high population density, they also experience a large number of trips related to visiting relatives and friends.

In the next step, the relations between components of investment attractiveness and actual investments in general, as well as for individual groups of municipalities were examined (Table 6) using the linear correlation coefficient. It was observed that the analyzed factors are characterized by a changing role and weak or moderate impact (correlation) on real investment. It should be noted that in no case were the correlation coefficients determined high. In accordance with the adopted model, the main factors for the development of accommodation facilities in cities are social infrastructure (r = 0.41, *p* = 0.00), administrative microclimate (r = 0.40, *p* = 0.00) and microclimate of tourist attractions (r = 0.42, *p* = 0.00). These are elements of anthropogenic origin created by man and strongly associated with the development and economic potential of cities. The situation looks different in the case of rural municipalities, where natural values (r = 0.28, *p* = 0.00) were recognized as the main factor in the development of the accommodation facilities. The main factor in the development of accommodation facilities in urban-rural municipalities are tourist attractions (r = 0.31, *p* = 0.00) and natural values (r = 0.26, *p* = 0.00). In general, the regions presented a low correlation between the number of newly created accommodation facilities (investments) and the level of potential investment attractiveness (r = 0.31, *p* = 0.00).


**Table 6.** Relations between potential investment attractiveness and real investments measured by correlation coefficient (descriptive statistics and correlation analysis).

Source: Author's own elaboration.

Multiple linear regression was calculated to predict real investments based on their technical infrastructure, social infrastructure, administrative climate, natural values and tourism attractions. A significant regression equation was found (*F*(5, 2472) = 105.417, *p* < 0.00), with an R2 of 0.176 (Table 7). Participants' predicted real investments is equal to 0.220–0.005 (technical infrastructure) + 0.214 (social infrastructure) + 0.081 (administrative climate) + 0.109 (natural values) + 0.414 (tourism attractions), where all are measured in synthetic index (Table 8). The significant predictors of real investments were social infrastructure, administrative climate, natural values and tourism attractions. The results of the multiple linear regression indicated that the model explained 17.6% of the variance in real investments (Table 9).


**Table 7.** ANOVA.



Source: Author's own elaboration.



### *4.2. Investment Gaps in Tourism*

The above results of a moderate correlation between real and potential possibilities of investing in tourism led to finding the causes of this phenomenon. It was assumed that there is an investment gap in the regions, which arises as a result of unused investment opportunities. Municipalities with favorable investment conditions have not yet developed tourism investments. This situation applies to all types of municipalities, both cities and rural areas. The analysis of individual administrative types indicated that as many as 53% of cities have investment gaps, whereas, in the case of urban-rural municipalities this percentage amounted to 42%, and 24% (Table 10) in the group of rural municipalities. The municipalities with the largest investment gap are mainly medium and small cities, as well as rural municipalities, whose spatial distribution on a map shows that they are located in areas with attractive natural terrain, such as lakelands, sea coast, and mountainous areas (Figure 4). Large investment gaps also occur in municipalities located around the largest cities in Poland, such as Warszawa, Kraków and Pozna ´n.


**Table 10.** Investment gaps—difference between potential investment attractiveness class and real investments class by municipalities.

Source: Author's own elaboration.

**Figure 4.** Investment gaps in tourism. Source: Author's own elaboration.
