Foreign tourism on the rise again thanks to budget airlines

It was also the first year for some time  that the number of domestic tourists did not decrease. The number of foreigners who will visit Poland in the whole 2005 is estimated at around 4 million. The largest number of foreign visitors come from Germany, but Italy and France are not far behind. There was a clear increase in the number of those visiting not only the tourist hotspots, but also the countryside. According to Krzysztof Łopaciński, the director of the Tourism Institute, this is mainly thanks to the growth of budget airlines. The projected 2005 income from foreign tourists is $3.2 billion, up from $2.9 billion in 2004. (Rzeczpospolita, pp. B1)