Abstract:

This paper reports an empirical analysis of the potential of tourism sub-region in Poland. The main purpose of the paper is to evaluate the tourism potential of the homogeneous tourism sub-regions, as the basis of a new tool for tourism management. The objectives of this study were to identify the factors shaping the tourism potential of the studied areas, and the differences in potential of its individual districts.

The authors researched these issues by analyzing the statistical data of the Polish Central Statistical Office. This data precedes the COVID-19 outbreak. Using the available collected data, the basic characteristics of their tourism potential were specified. Hellwig’s and TOPSIS methods were both used, and then the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was used to determine the strength of interdependence of both rankings.

To identify how well the sub-region used its potential, the obtained results and coefficients related to density of tourist movement and Schneider’s intensity of tourist movement were compared. The outcome demonstrated that almost all units used their opportunities in an appropriate way. The authors propose that this tool can have wider application.