Tourism demand in the Carpathian countries

3.2Tourism demand in the Carpathian countries

Source: UNWTO, 2012, 2013

As Rátz (2004) stated, traditionally, the region had a strong relationship with the Western part of the continent, but after WW2, the whole area became part of the socialist block. Certain traditional tourist activities such as golf or tennis as well as visiting religious sights were discouraged. Tourism itself as a leisure industry was partly considered an unnecessary luxury, and priority was given to state or rade union-supported ’social tourism’ (i.e. from the early 60’s, the new system established a state or trade union owned and managed holiday resort network, with special regulations and restrictions, in order to provide a holiday experience for hard-working citizens).

Trade unions played an important role in the allocation of supply and the management of these services. The network mainly included domestic (mainly health and lake-side) resorts, though trips to the other socialist countries were also available, provided by the state-owned tour operators (e.g. Cedok, IBUSZ, Orbis). For children, so called ’pioneer camps’ were offered, a sort of substitution of scout camps, usually at lakes or seaside or in mountain regions.

All these regulations contributed to the development of a strong domestic tourism in the socialist countries, but it was an artificial situation. Since the collapse of the system, intra-regional and domestic tourism have been heavily affected by the economic downturns (and upturns). This has been especially true for cross-border trips, which mainly motivated by different price levels on the two sides of the given border.

Based on the UNWTO (2013) Factbook data, the followings statistics were collected and summerized from each country (though some of the information can be biased, eg. the total number of overnight international tourists of Ukraine, or the number of accommodation in Poland). Please find the tables in point in the Appendix.