Wieś jako obszar turystyki społecznej

Abstract

The countryside is a specific area generating and receiving tourist movement. The tourist activity of rural population in Poland is significantly lower than in case of urban citizens. The main barrier is related to the economic factors as well as summer farming activities and organizational, informational, social and infrastructural restraints. As the large percentage of rural population has no possibility to fulfil their tourist-recreational needs, they should be covered by a special support programme in terms of social tourism (as well as quasi-social and socially committed tourism). On the other hand, creating social travel agencies in areas endangered by marginalisation can become a beginning of important social-economic changes, stimulate entrepreneurship, create new jobs, help prevent pathology and social exclusion, integrate local community, build the so-called social capital and increase the general life quality of the inhabitants. That is why the support for both inbound and outbound tourism should be the way of helping the socially excluded rural inhabitants.