Natalia Piechota, Piotr Zmyślony

Abstract: The international meetings industry has become very challenging from the destination managerial point of view. There has been an increasing number of cities bidding for international meetings and events. To be successful, they should meet strict criteria set by associations and other institutions acting as meeting hosts in bidding processes. Therefore, the aim of the paper is to assess the potential of Polish cities for competing in the international meetings market. A desk research was conducted to analyse critical resources divided into four dimensions: meetings industry, economic, tourist, and green. On the basis of this research, the overall index of competitiveness and the classification of cities was identified. Moreover, cluster analysis was used to recognise which cities have a similar potential in developing the meetings industry. The results show that the most competitive Polish cities are Warsaw and Cracow.

Keywords: Cities, cities’ competitiveness, international meetings industry, convention bureau, Poland.

Piechota, N., Zmyślony, P., (2016). Competitiveness of Polish cities in the international meetings market, in: F. Dias (ed.), A pathway for the new generaton of tourism research ­ – Proceedings of the EATSA Conference 2016, APTUR – Associação Portuguesa de Turismologia, 119-131 [PDF].