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Kraków The Host City: Stories Episode 9: Organising tourism in Kraków

There were many organisations in Kraków which dealt with tourism. The most important of them were the Polish Tatra Society (Polskie Towarzystwo Tatrzańskie), the Kraków branch of the Polish Sightseeing Society (Polskie Towarzystwo Krajoznawcze), a branch of the League of Promotion of Tourism (Liga Popierania Turystyki), the Kraków Summer Association (Związek Letniskowy Ziemi Krakowskiej), the Kraków Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Krakowska Izba Przemysłowo-Handlowa), the Polish Tourist Organisation (Polski Związek Turystyczny), the Polish Balneological Society (Polskie Towarzystwo Balneologiczne) and the Polish Ski Association (Polski Związek Narciarski).

Photo Postcard from Krakow, ca. 1901 (Publisher: Salon Malarzy Polskich)

The Kraków Chamber of Commerce and Industry was active on the national scale, in terms of laying the foundations for the transformation of tourism into a branch of the national economy. At the end of the 1920s it began to recognise the importance of scientific research into the socio-economic function of tourism. In 1930, on the occasion of the jubilee of its 80th anniversary, it organised in Kraków the Congress of the Union of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of the Republic of Poland, devoted entirely to tourism and health resort issues. The Congress officially launched the study of tourist traffic, which has since been carried out on a large scale in the Kraków Chamber. Supervision was exercised by the Chamber's Director, Henryk Mianowski, who cooperated with Stanisław Leszczycki.

Also in Kraków, the first schools related to tourism were developing, which contributed to the strengthening of educational and scientific activities. In the academic year 1932/1933, the Hotel Management School began its activities on 4 Oleandry St. It was the third institution in Poland with the status of a higher education school. The main objective of this school was to educate future hotel employees, including managers. Education lasted two years, and the programme was structured to match the level of European hotel schools. The subjects were divided into groups: linguistic (English, German and French – all compulsory), commercial [sic!], i.e., commercial accounts, bookkeeping and correspondence, and technical (modern technical and architectural installations, commodity science, typing, economic geography and the sanitary preparation of nourishing cuisine). The students also attended lectures on law and commerce. On Saturday mornings, students had practical classes. Everyone had to work at the reception desk, in the restaurant and kitchen as well as at the buffet or in the basement to get to know every nook and cranny of the hotel. In addition, the students had to complete a summer internship (from 1 to 3 months) in hotels all over the country. They described the activities they undertook in this work in the Internship Logbook, and they had to write a paper on the course of the internship along with a description of a specific hotel facility.

At the corner of Dolnych Młynów Street and Mickiewicza Avenue, the Post-Secondary School of Hotel Management began operating in 1934. Also in Kraków, in 1936, Bohdan Białecki (director of the Post-Secondary School of Hotel Management) published the first textbook in Polish entitled Nauka w zawodzie hotelarskim (Learning the Trade of Hotel Management). The same year saw the establishment of the first academic-scientific institution dedicated to the study of tourism – the Tourism Studium at the Institute of Geographical Studies of the Jagiellonian University. This Studium played an important role in the development of Polish and world tourism geography and spatial planning, in particular related to tourism, and in the preparation of staff for the developing tourism sector. The activities of the Studium made the public aware of the important place tourism can have in the social, economic, and cultural development of regions and towns. The Studium published the magazine Turyzm (Tourism). Other periodicals concerning tourism, sightseeing or the hotel industry were also published in Kraków, such as Pamiętnik Towarzystwa Balneologicznego (Diary of the Balneological Society), Pamiętnik Towarzystwa Tatrzańskiego (Diary of the Tatra Society), and Orli Lot (Eagle’s Flight).

Kraków hosted industry meetings, the first of which was the Tourist Convention held on 11-13 October 1919. During its gatherings, the Polish Association of Tourist Societies was established. The second event was the International Congress of Tourist Offices in 1929. In 1935, a conference on tourist houses for young people was held.

In the story’s next episode, you will read about popular tourist attractions in Kraków.

Author: Katarzyna Janik

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Author: Katarzyna Janik/ Kraków Convention Bureau
News author: Małgorzata Rajwa
News Publisher: Biuro Kongresów EN
Published: 2022-05-27
Last update: 2022-05-27
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