Tourism Sector Growing Faster Than Poland’s GDP
A conference was held at the headquarters of the Central Statistical Office (GUS) in Warsaw with the participation of Ireneusz Raś, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Sport and Tourism, and Dr hab. Marek Cierpiał-Wolan, President of GUS. During the event, the Tourism Observatory was officially launched, and the latest statistics on tourist traffic in Poland in 2025 were presented.
The Tourism Observatory is a research project unique on a European scale. Its purpose is to strengthen the monitoring system of the tourism market by developing research, analyses, and information tools supporting the tourism industry and public administration. As highlighted during the conference, tourism accounts for around 5% of Poland’s GDP, which makes access to reliable and up‑to‑date statistical data crucial for effective development and business decision‑making.
As part of the Observatory, the Turystyka PLUS portal will be expanded. It presents comprehensive data on Poland’s tourism market in the form of interactive maps, charts, and analyses. It includes information on the use of accommodation facilities, spending by domestic and foreign tourists, and travel purposes, with the possibility to analyse data at voivodeship and county levels. In the near future, the data will be updated in real time, providing accurate and—most importantly—the latest insights from the tourism market. The Observatory is one of the completed projects under Ireneusz Raś’s “tourism decalogue,” announced during the Tourism Congress in Kołobrzeg in 2025.
An important part of the project is also the development of research using artificial intelligence. In 2025, a competition was launched under the INFOSTRATEG programme to develop tools analysing the tourism market based on public and commercial data, including booking portals, administrative data, social media, and internet search trends. The programme has a budget of PLN 44 million.
The launch of the Tourism Observatory is the result of an agreement between the Ministry of Sport and Tourism and the Central Statistical Office.
Record Results for the Tourism Sector
The conference also presented the latest data on tourist traffic in Poland. The year 2025 proved to be another record‑breaking period for the tourism sector. From January to November 2025, accommodation facilities were used by 39.6 million tourists, an increase of 9.9% compared to the same period in 2024. The number of domestic tourists grew by 9.3%, while the number of foreign tourists increased by 12%.
Positive trends are also visible in world tourism. According to UN Tourism, the number of international trips in 2025 reached approximately 1.52 billion, an increase of nearly 60 million compared to the previous year. These results confirm a continued strong demand for tourism and a return to the growth trajectory seen before the pandemic.
The inauguration of the Tourism Observatory is an important step toward further developing Poland’s tourism sector, increasing the competitiveness of the industry, and building effective analytical tools to support its future.
Portal: Turystyka+
Source: Ministry of Sport and Tourism