Bringing Poland to the world
Andrzej Wróbel: The advertising campaign with the Polish plumber was extremely successful, is POT still making use of this figure?
Tomasz Wilczak: That was a great idea that satisfied the demands of that particular time. The whole mess with work permits for Poles and our response: we stay home, come to visit us. However, it could not be a long-lasting campaign. Now, when more and more countries open their labor markets, it will not make sense.
When are we going to exceed the record of the number of tourists that came to Poland at the beginning of 1990s?
The gap is not big now. At the beginning of the 1990s a lot of Germans crossed the border just to do shopping and leave and participated in no other activities. Now there are more tourists who want to see something in Poland, compare the information they've heard with reality. Now we are going to appear on as-yet unknown markets such as India or Saudi Arabia. Polish ambassadors are pressing us to present the country there. Poland seems very attractive for them.
In September Poland will host the Miss World 2006 Contest. How will Poland be promoted for that occasion?
It is a wonderful opportunity for us to show our country from the best side. We plan to support the organizers in terms of promotion. We would like to make films with the participants. However, we are not an organizer or even a co-organizer of the contest.
You have not been in your post for long, what changes in POT's policy should we expect now?
A new POT statute with a changed organizational structure is expected before Easter. We want to divide the institution into three departments: foreign, domestic and strategy. This year's POT budget reaches zł.39 million and is higher than last year. Currently, there are thirteen Polish Tourist Information Centers across Europe, in Japan and the US. Now we want to open another one in Kiev in the fall. We are going to make the existing thirteen operate more effectively. We want to renew the old agreement with Lot, Poland's national airline. We intend to focus on marketing with an extensive campaign. We want to promote symbols and logos that will be unambiguously associated with Poland.
