Rola zakładów EMIT w Żychlinie jako organizatora turystyki i wypoczynku

Abstract

Since the end of the Second World War Poland belonged to the group of the countries where social tourism was strongly being developed. At the same time, functioning of private establishments, including tourist ones, were limited to a large extend. In such circumstances, sometimes the only way of participating in organised sightseeing-relaxation trips was to use the services of some institutions such as schools or factories. Those institutions both organised and financed participation of their workers and members of their families in ‘wide’ tourism understood that way. Above described situation was especially distinctive in little towns, the development of which was very often dependent on one big factory. This was the case of Żychlin, the town which was the subject of our research resulting in the Master’s Thesis (the basis of the above article). A big industrial plant in Żychlin took part in every aspect of town’s life, totally subordinating town’s functioning to its existence. Due to the help of the industrial plant all residential districts, schools, roads or electric mains were built. Leisure time of Żychlin inhabitants, among which almost 2/3 were somehow connected with the plant, was dominated by its functioning. When there were no other organizers of tourism and relaxation and when the plant possessed its own accommodation and transportation it was a monopolist in this field. So it was natural that the examined plant became the organizer of majority of (even up to 90%) tourist and recreational trips of Żychlin inhabitants independently of the fact that they were formally entitled (being employees or members of their families were employed) to use the services of the plant. As the above described case was nothing unusual till 1989, yet it may be surprising that there have been hardly any changes in the model of recreation of Żychlin inhabitants since the 1990s of the 20th century. Despite increasing financial difficulties of Żychlin establishment, its role as the main organizer of tourism and relaxation for inhabitants has remained almost unchanged. The only differences, which can be observed, are limited frequency of trips and individual trips organized more often. Reasons of such situations can be seen both in some kind of habit of using recreational offers of the plant, and in the lack of opportunities (both financial and organizational) to take more attractive but also more expensive offers of travel agencies. The described case is both the example of the evolution in the system of organizing social tourism in Poland, but also it illustrates its influence on the shape of the model of tourist behaviour of Polish citizens.