During the last twenty years, accommodation in Poland had gone through a huge transformation and now its standard does not differ from that in Western European countries.

Rajski Gościniec - an agroturistic farm in Rajskie village (Bieszczady mountains, southern Poland)


The biggest asset of the Polish tourist infrastructure is its young age. The vast majority of investments have been made over the past several years. Thus, Polish hotels offer the latest solutions and are extremely functional. As a result, guests are very often pleasantly surprised with the quality and level of services. Most of the hotel chains in Poland exceed the standard of facilities of the same chain as well as hotels categorised at the same level. This is due to the aforementioned young age of these objects and thus the use of the latest solutions. Unfortunately, the dynamic development of accommodation in Poland is non-uniform. Its dispersion is also characteristic. A relatively large proportion of accommodation is run by owners of small facilities that are usually uncategorised. This type of accommodation constitutes the base of many regions that are attractive because of nature. The situation is better in cities, where there are many international hotel chains.


Hotels

According to the Polish Central Statistical Office, in 2008, the total number of beds in hotels in Poland was 210,507. The majority of the most attractive tourist regions have a sufficiently developed, categorized accommodation base. Such is the case in Warsaw and Cracow, and in fact in all major cities. Nearly 70 percent of all hotel facilities in Poland are located in cities. If we add facilities located in the mountains to this - about 10 percent - then it turns out that the city and places in southern Poland represent about 80 percent of this type of facilities.


The hotels in cities have an even greater share in the amount of accommodation provided to foreign citizens. In 2008, according to official statistics, 85 percent of all accommodation provided to foreigners in Poland was sold in facilities located in cities. The only deficit that can be noticed on the still developing market of urban hotels is the relatively small amount of one- and two-star facilities. The region with the largest number of hotels is Małopolskie voivodeship. In this voivodeship, there are 282 hotel facilities, which is over 15 percent of all hotels in the country. Here, there are international hotel chains as well as small independent hotels.




This is due to its exceptional tourist attractiveness and huge potential. Within this region, there are five sites included on UNESCO's World Heritage List. Wielkopolskie voivodeship located in the west comes in second place. On the opposite end of the spectrum are Podlaskie, Opolskie and Lubelskie voivodeships. In the former voivodeship, there are only 20 hotel facilities. In Opolskie there are 34 and in Lubelskie there are 39. In the case of Opolskie voivodeship, its small size is the cause, however the other two regions are decidedly larger. Both have a poor hotel base despite great tourist potential.


Not only hotels

The non-hotel facilities base is much more developed. However, the basic problem for potential contractors is the lack of categorization and lack of large organizations bringing together this type of base, making it difficult to fit larger groups. The situation nevertheless is changing and categorization of e. g. agritourism facilities has already begun in some regions (e. g. in Małopolska). Many of these facilities, despite the lack of categorization, do not deviate from the accepted standards for these type of places, so they are not inferior to such facilities as B&B accommodation in Great Britain. According to the Polish Central Statistical Office data from 2 years ago, in the various accommodation facilities that are not hotels (and thus in lodging houses and in agritourism facilities), there were 386 491 beds available.

These data did not include camping sites. However, these data probably do not include the smallest objects, such as individual guest rooms or small agritourism facilities. Accommodation in Poland is constantly evolving rapidly and thus its state and network are constantly improving. The areas that are the most attractive to tourists have quite well developed accommodation already, and it continues to develop despite the uneven distribution of accommodation facilities on the map of the country. Fortunately, there is no place in Poland where there is the risk of over investment or hotel overpopulation as is the case particularly in coastal areas of some countries. Poland's accommodation still has great potential both for investors and for companies wanting to have
the country by the Vistula in their offer.

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