Growing numbers of foreign tourists are choosing Poland

In the peak tourist season this year, July and August, nearly 1.5 million foreign tourists visited Poland, buying close to 3.7 million overnight stays – an increase of 6.4 percent and 10 percent respectively compared to the same period in 2015. Moreover, 2016 is the seventh year in a row that Poland has attracted more tourists than in the preceding year. This is according to data from the Central Statistical Office (GUS) gathered by Lion’s Bank. This is very good news for the entire hospitality industry in Poland. If foreigners paid PLN 150 on average for an overnight hotel stay, this comes to a total of PLN 550 million. To this, expenditures on transportation, meals, entertainment, and souvenirs have to be added. The largest numbers of tourists came from Germany, the US, Ukraine, and Italy, with Germans accounting for over one-third of all overnight stays in July and August. The biggest y/y increases were in tourist numbers from Malta (102 percent), Hong Kong (86 percent), Canada (53 percent), and Brazil (48 percent), while the biggest decreases were in the numbers of Belarusian (-21 percent) and Russian (-14 percent) tourists.