A more popular place to go on Holidays. The number of foreign tourists visiting Poland grew by 11 percent year on year in 2012, growing to almost 15 million, with tourism accounting for 6 percent of GDP last year.
The figures, cited by the Ministry of Sport and Tourism in a new report and drawn up by the Institute of Tourism and Activ Group, records some 14.8 million foreigners coming to Poland in 2012. The growth was spurred on by Poland’s co-organisation of the Euro 2012 football championships.
The largest percentage of foreigners visiting Poland were Germans (32.4 percent), Ukrainians (13.5 percent), Belarusians (10.8 percent), Russians, (4.5 percent), Lithuanians (4.1 percent) and Britons (3.3 percent). ‘Poland’ brand on the rise Poland also noted the most prominent growth as a brand – by 75 percent – in an international ranking of 100 countries. Speaking to journalists on Monday, Minister Joanna Mucha said that “[the Poland] brand which was valued at 269 billion US dollars, now stands at 472 billion US dollars.”“The effects are measureable – tourism accounted for 6 percent of GDP in 2012, the highest figure since 2007,” the ministerial report states.
Deputy minister Katarzyna Sobierajska also added on Monday that the number of foreign visitors to Poland for the first half of 2013 are promising. Some 7.3 million tourists came to the country between January and the end of June – an 8 percent gain on the same period last year. The Ministry estimates that growth in tourism will continue at a rate of 5-7 percent for 2013. Meanwhile, figures also show a drop by 9 percent in Poles who decide to travel abroad, although the number of domestic trips increased by 38 percent in 2012, year on year.
Source: Radio Polskie -IRA - onet.pl
http://www.thenews.pl/1/12/Artykul/148062,Foreign-tourists-boosting-Polish-economy