Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
major source of Central European tourism
when they were economically strong - as it
was before World War I and in the interwar
period.
Communist countries. Hungary began to encou-
rage large-scale Western tourism as part of the
general liberalization of the services sector in
the late 1970s (see Miczek, 1989) and Poland
followed in the 1980s, but neither reduced
their own welfare tourism.
Shortly after the fall of Communism in
1989/90, social tourism (which had hitherto
cost the tourists themselves next to nothing)
had to be curtailed, because it could no longer
be financed by its former sponsors. The num-
ber of overnight stays fell accordingly with only
the quota of commercial tourism remaining
steady. The outbreak of war in Yugoslavia in
1991 added to the damage already done (see
Jordan, 1995). Thus, 1991 and the following
years represent a statistical nadir in the foreign
tourism of all Central and Eastern European
countries.
The levels shown in Figs 6.3-6.6 are the
result of a slow recovery in commercial
tourism that soon set in after this depression,
but nevertheless failed to live up to the expec-
tations it raised. Croatia was relatively the
most successful, at some distance followed by
the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and
Slovenia.
Tourism Development in Central
Europe after the Fall of the Iron
Curtain: a Statistical Survey
Volume of tourism
The current intensity (Fig. 6.3) and volume
(Fig. 6.4) of foreign tourism is in all former
Communist countries now at a lower level
than it was before the political change. This
is mainly because of the collapse of social
tourism, which was conducted on the basis of
highly organized holiday recreation centres run
by companies and trade unions and which
played a dominant role in the tourism of all
communist countries except for Yugoslavia
(see Vukicevi
c
, 1971). The latter opened itself
up early for commercial Western tourism (in
the 1950s) while cutting back social tourism
for its own population and those from other
Poland
Germany
Czech Republic
Slovakia
Austria
CH
Hungary
Italy
Slovenia
Serbia &
Montenegro
RO
Croatia
Overnights of foreigners per inhabitant
0.5
1
2
3
4 9.2-10.7
Fig. 6.3.
Tourism intensity, 2003.
