Touristic Perspectives of Belarus. The Polish Experience
Lina Novik
I couldn’t help laughing, when I heard about “the perspectives of Belarusian tourism” before. I thought reasonably that no one would come to us, as, on the one hand, Belarus couldn’t boast of having a sea or mountains and on the other hand having such competitive neighbours as Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine, Belarus had no chances to win the market at all. Initially, I was quite sceptical as for the development of the so-called agro-tourism in Belarus as well. However, some smart people explained me one day that the Belarusians also had a need to relax at least once in a while.
Even a bit later I learnt that the neighbouring Poland with its Baltic Sea, the mountains, the “star” hotels and 10 (!) cities, included into the UNESCO list of global cultural heritage, noted agro-tourism among four mainstream direction of the national tourism development. I was quite surprised to learn that the agricultural tourist business was more than successfully developing in the country. (Presently, tourism is holding the third position in the list of the most profitable businesses in Poland, it brings even more money to the country than production of coal.)
The tourist branch in Poland faced the majority of positive transformations, as soon as Poland had entered the European Union and joined the Schengen zone a couple of years before.
In fact, the EU boundary moved to the eastern border of Poland. Consequently, the role of Poland as a country at the cross-roads of civilizations and cultures considerably increased.
Naturally, as soon as the European borders opened, weak tour operators in Poland had to “leave the game”. At the same time the remaining players launched immediately close working contacts with tour operators in the West and broadened the local market of tourist services considerably.
There appeared narrow specialization of tourist agencies. The Polish state started special programs, aimed at the tourism development in the country, including “Turyn – 1” and “Turyn – 2” programs.
Firstly, these programs secured the necessary basic funding and facilitated creation of plans of actions on tourism development in the country.
Surprisingly, the Poles laid their hopes on the agro-tourism and ‘nostalgia’ tourism, i.e. on the tourist opportunities that could interest the Polish residents and the Polish emigrants. (It should be mentioned that some Belarusian tour operators make attempts to develop the ‘nostalgia’ tourism line in Belarus as well nowadays.) The Polish businessmen understand pretty well that in spite of keeping to the highest global standards in the field of tourist services, Poland cannot compete successfully with such tourist meccas as Greece or Switzerland for objective reasons. Firstly, Poland is not a global tourist mecca anyway. Therefore, on the one hand, a lot has to be done in order to inform the global tourists about the uniqueness of Poland. On the other hand, some substitution directions in tourist business have to be developed.
The same goes well for Belarus. Firstly, a lot depends on the image of your country in the tourist branch. Therefore, a lot of pains have to be taken on informing the public about your tourist facilities (e.g. eco-mansions) before starting any serious business in the field indeed.
The Polish Tourism in Figures
It will take around two hours to get from Paris to Warsaw or from London to Warsaw by plane. A flight from Berlin to Warsaw will last for one hour only.
Poland has 1.5 million beds in hotels, thousands of restaurants, hundreds of leisure establishments.
Mobile phone operators cover 94% of Polish territory.
Poland holds the 8th position in Europe as for the quantity of cash machines.
Poland holds the 7th position in the world as for the number of foreign tourists, visiting the country.