Dialogue, cooperation, and shared responsibility. How does Kraków discuss tourism?
Tourism has long been one of the pillars of Kraków’s economy, and its importance to the city continues to grow. According to tourism traffic surveys, estimated tourism-generated revenues in 2025 exceeded PLN 15 billion, representing an increase of more than 70% compared with the previous year. It is a sector that is constantly evolving, encompassing an increasingly broad range of services, initiatives and entities involved in serving visitors.
This is precisely why a discussion about the future of tourism is, in fact, a discussion about the future of the city. Such a complex and dynamic sector requires more than administrative decisions and top-down development strategies. Partnership, open dialogue and the exchange of experience between all stakeholders involved in shaping Kraków’s tourism offer are essential. For this reason, stakeholder dialogue is one of the key tools for implementing the “Kraków Sustainable Tourism Policy for 2021–2028.”
From discussion to urban tourism policy
Kraków consistently implements its sustainable tourism policy based on partnership, dialogue and openness to grassroots initiatives. The policy adopted by the city defines long-term objectives and a framework for tourism-related activities, ensuring coherence between individual initiatives while taking into account current challenges and trends affecting the city’s development.
These include, among others, the development of new technologies, challenges related to a tourist tax and short-term tourist rentals, the need for agile management in times of global crises, the necessity to combine flexibility with operational efficiency, continuous monitoring of the market and emerging tourism trends, as well as the effective mitigation of conflicts between different stakeholder groups. Regular exchange of knowledge and experience provides a response to these processes, enabling stakeholders to jointly develop solutions tailored to the city’s current needs.
Among the most important platforms for dialogue between stakeholders of the sustainable tourism policy are the Tourism Forum, Kraków Network 2.0, “Otwarta Bracka”, as well as meetings of the Sustainable Night-Time Economy Commission and its working groups. Each of these initiatives addresses different needs and engages different stakeholder groups, but they all serve the same purpose: maintaining an ongoing dialogue about tourism development, strengthening cooperation, monitoring changes within the sector and mitigating potential conflicts between participants in urban life. These meetings provide a forum for discussing both strategic directions for tourism development and current challenges associated with the functioning of a city visited by millions of guests every year.
An important element of this cooperation and knowledge-management system is also provided by events that contribute to building the city’s brand, including the “Historical Cities 3.0” International Conference, the “Historical Cities 3.0” webinar series, the international seminar “Short-Term Rentals in Tourist Cities – Balancing Tourism and the Local Community”, as well as the Task Force on Hotel Services Provided in Non-Classified Accommodation Facilities within the Municipality of Kraków.
These initiatives serve as platforms for knowledge transfer, exchange of experience and sharing of good practices, complementing the dialogue mechanisms implemented through the Tourism Forum, Kraków Network 2.0, “Otwarta Bracka”, and the work of the Sustainable Night-Time Economy Commission and its working groups.
A forum open to everyone interested
One of the key instruments for dialogue between tourism stakeholders is the Kraków Tourism Forum. Organised regularly by the Tourism Department of the Municipality of Kraków, the event has provided a space for exchanging knowledge, experience and opinions on the most important challenges and directions of tourism development for more than 20 years.
The Forum’s format remains flexible and is adapted to the current needs of both the city and the market. Individual editions focus on issues of particular importance to tourism development, including emerging trends, innovative tourism products, the use of cultural heritage and initiatives supporting the sustainable development of the sector.
As a result, the Forum is not merely an industry conference but a platform for jointly developing solutions for Kraków. Rather than simply being a conference about tourism, it is a space in which the future of tourism is shaped together.
This year’s edition focused, among other topics, on the city’s development directions, new tourism products, the cultural and sports offer, as well as initiatives based on local heritage. Particular attention was paid to measures supporting higher-quality tourism and encouraging visitors to discover less familiar places and stories connected with Kraków.
Like the other dialogue platforms operating within Kraków’s sustainable tourism policy, the Forum is open to a broad range of participants. Representatives of the tourism industry, public institutions, civil society organisations, academia, councillors, local government officials and residents interested in the city’s development are all welcome to participate.
This open format has ensured strong interest from the local community for many years, while at the same time facilitating partnership building, the exchange of perspectives and the joint search for solutions addressing the challenges facing contemporary tourism.
Dialogue throughout the year
The Tourism Forum is not a one-off event but part of a broader, continuous dialogue on the development of Kraków’s tourism sector. Discussions initiated during the annual meetings continue throughout the year, with one of the tools supporting this exchange being the “Otwarta Bracka” series, organised by the Tourism Department together with the Kraków Tourism Alliance.
The meetings are held monthly, on every third Thursday, at Bracka 1, home of the Kraków Tourism Alliance, and Bracka 10, the headquarters of the Tourism Department.
The initiative provides a space for less formal but equally important discussions, enabling the city to continuously monitor stakeholder needs, exchange experience and jointly identify solutions to the challenges facing Kraków’s tourism sector. Like the Tourism Forum, it is based on the principle that effective tourism management requires continuous communication and cooperation between different communities and sectors.
Another important component of this cooperation framework is Kraków Network 2.0, which has operated in a renewed format since 2025 and aims to integrate the sector centred around the meetings industry. The project serves as a cooperation platform for organisations involved in the delivery of congresses, conferences, trade fairs, incentive travel and business events, creating opportunities to build relationships, establish partnerships and exchange knowledge and experience.
Through joint activities, participants are better positioned to respond to the changing needs of event organisers and business event delegates, develop the city’s offer and strengthen Kraków’s position as a modern and responsibly managed MICE destination.
Kraków Network 2.0 pursues these objectives through educational programmes, networking initiatives and projects jointly implemented by representatives of tourism, culture, academia and business. This approach facilitates the development of practical solutions supporting business tourism and the meetings industry, improves service quality and contributes to Kraków’s long-term competitiveness in both the domestic and international MICE market.
Another important forum for the exchange of views is the Sustainable Night-Time Economy Commission, which facilitates dialogue between residents, entrepreneurs, experts and city representatives on issues related to the functioning of Kraków’s city centre after dark. Its activities support the development of solutions that balance the needs of residents, visitors and businesses operating in areas with high levels of tourism activity.
Working together for responsible tourism
The Tourism Forum, Otwarta Bracka, Kraków Network 2.0 and the Sustainable Night-Time Economy Commission today form a coherent model of cooperation and communication between the city, its residents and representatives of the tourism industry.
Although each initiative has a slightly different character, they all serve the same purpose: exchanging information, identifying challenges, jointly developing solutions and building partnerships that support the development of tourism.
At a time when tourism presents cities with increasingly complex challenges, this approach is becoming a cornerstone of responsible tourism management. Kraków consistently demonstrates that tourism development is not the responsibility of a single institution or industry. Instead, it becomes a shared responsibility of the city, the tourism sector and its residents.
This article is part of a series of publications by the Municipality of Kraków on the state of tourism in Kraków. The series aims to help structure key concepts and phenomena and to analyse the advantages and disadvantages of tourism in Kraków on the basis of data. It also encourages active participation in social dialogue between residents, businesses and local government.