Stakeholders’ attitudes towards tools for sustainable tourism in historical cities

ABSTRACT

Urban space is often the cause of disputes. The underlying causes of these disputes are conflicting interests, attitudes and needs regarding the way it is used. Among the various functions performed by cities, tourism activities have been distinguished as the foremost in the cities of historical value. Mass tourism has developed in the last decade and its excessive flow of tourists has in turn led to overtourism which as described in literature is a negative phenomenon. The causes of conflicts related to the development of tourism and their scale are very diverse. The freezing of the tourism economy during the COVID-19 pandemic created an opportunity to balance its development in the future. As described in the article, this research aims at identifying the attitudes and expectations of Krakow's residence towards the tools of balancing the tourism economy in the post pandemic period. The statistical analysis of the acquired data collected through questionnaires from 386 respondents during July 2020 revealed that most of the respondents support the preservation of cultural heritage and landscapes over business and profit making.

KEYWORDS:

• Historical cities
• tourism
• tools
• sustainability
• Krakow
• post-COVID-19

Acknowledgments

This paper was published as part of the research project ‘A business model for health resort enterprises’ No. 2017/25/B/HS4/00301 supervised and financed by the National Science Center in Poland and as part of statutory research ROZ 1: 13/010/BK_21/0057 at the Silesian University of Technology, Faculty of Organization and Management.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 The term NIMBY is an acronym for the English words ‘not in my backyard’. This term describes the attitude of people who object to the location of dangerous facilities or those that will result in losses for the local population in their immediate vicinity.

Additional information

Funding

The National Science Center in Poland - research project ‘A business model for health resort enterprises’ No. 2017/25/B/HS4/00301 and the Silesian University of Technology, Faculty of Organization and Management - statutory research ROZ 1: 13/010/BK_21/0057.

Notes on contributors

Adam R. Szromek

Adam R. Szromek is a Professor of Social Science at the Silesian University of Technology in Poland. His research interests focus on heritage tourism and health tourism with special attention to spa tourism management and business models in spa enterprises. Prof. Szromek's research has appeared in the Tourism Management, American Journal of Tourism Management, Health Policy, Health Services Research, Sustainability, Studies in Physical Culture and Tourism, and Human Resources for Health.

Zygmunt Kruczek

Zygmunt Kruczek is a Professor and Head of the Department of Geography of Tourism and Ecology in the Faculty of Tourism and Recreation at the University of Physical Education in Krakow. He specializes in research on tourist attractions, regional aspects of the geography of tourism, tourism promotion and information. He is also the President of the Polish Association of Tourism Experts.

Bartłomiej Walas

Bartłomiej Walas is a Dean of the Faculty of Tourism, member of expert's Council for tourism at the Ministry of Development of the Republic of Poland. As an academic teacher, he is specialist in the field of tourism policy and marketing with scientific and implementation achievements. He has also many years of experience in public administration.