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Tourism in Poland

Tourism in Poland

Poland recorded a total of 89 million tourists in 2019, ranking 2nd in the world in absolute terms.

Without including the size of a country, such a ranking list may not be very meaningful. By putting the tourist numbers in relation to the population of Poland, the result is much more comparable picture: With 2.3 tourists per resident, Poland ranked 26th in the world. In Eastern Europe, it ranked 4th.

In 2020, Poland generated around 8.38 billion US dollars in the tourism sector alone. This corresponds to 1.2 percent of its the gross domestic product and approximately 30 percent of all international tourism receipts in Eastern Europe.

A global comparison can be found here › International tourism


Back to overview: Poland

The most popular cities in Poland for international travelers are Krakow and Warsaw. In 2019, Krakow ranked 82nd among the world's most popular cities with 2.91 million tourists. Warsaw was in 86th place with 2.83 million tourists.

Tourism in Poland

Development of the tourism sector in Poland from 1995 to 2019

The following chart shows the number of tourist arrivals registered in Poland each year. Anyone who spends at least one night in the country but does not live there for more than 12 months is considered a tourist. Insofar as the survey included the purpose of the trip, business trips and other non-tourism travel purposes have already been excluded. The number of people passing through within the same day, and e.g., crew members of ships or flights are also not considered tourists in most countries. If the same person travels in and out more than once within the same year, each visit counts again.

Data in the chart are given in millions of tourists. The red line represents the average of all 10 countries in Eastern Europe.

Tourists per year in Poland

Revenues from tourism

In 1995, tourism revenues amounted to 6.93 billion USD, or about 4.9 percent of the gross national product. This corresponded to about 82.24 million tourists at that time and roughly 84 USD per person. Within 25 years, the country's dependence on tourism has decreased substantially. Before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, sales were $15.71 billion billion, 2.6 percent of gross national product. Thus, each visitor spent an average of $178 on their vacation in Poland.

In 2020, tourist receipts plummeted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Of the $15.71 billion billion (2019), only $8.38 billion billion remained. This is a 47 percent decrease in Poland.

Tourism receipts in Poland per year

All data for Poland in detail

YearNumber of touristsReceipts% of GNPReceipts per tourist
201988.52 m15.71 bn $2.6 %178 $
201885.95 m15.57 bn $2.6 %181 $
201783.80 m13.93 bn $2.7 %166 $
201680.48 m11.92 bn $2.5 %148 $
201577.74 m11.16 bn $2.3 %144 $
201473.75 m12.69 bn $2.3 %172 $
201372.31 m12.24 bn $2.3 %169 $
201267.39 m11.70 bn $2.3 %174 $
201160.75 m11.47 bn $2.2 %189 $
201058.34 m9.88 bn $2.1 %169 $
200953.84 m9.89 bn $2.2 %184 $
200859.94 m12.90 bn $2.4 %215 $
200766.21 m11.73 bn $2.7 %177 $
200665.12 m8.15 bn $2.4 %125 $
200564.61 m7.16 bn $2.3 %111 $
200461.92 m6.52 bn $2.6 %105 $
200352.13 m4.73 bn $2.2 %91 $
200250.74 m4.97 bn $2.5 %98 $
200161.43 m5.12 bn $2.7 %83 $
200084.52 m6.13 bn $3.6 %73 $
199989.12 m6.50 bn $3.8 %73 $
199888.59 m8.32 bn $4.8 %94 $
199787.82 m9.05 bn $5.7 %103 $
199687.44 m8.76 bn $5.5 %100 $
199582.24 m6.93 bn $4.9 %84 $


Our data on tourist numbers, revenues and expenditures are based on information from the World Tourism Organization. However, to ensure international comparability, the data for some years or countries were manually researched and corrected if they obviously included visitors without overnight stays. In these cases, the data were taken from the official communications of the respective national tourism authorities.

The World Tourism Organization additionally points out that in some countries, the number of tourists is only counted at airports, while in others they are also counted at border crossings or even hotels. A comprehensive and reliable indication is therefore hardly possible in any country.

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