Tourism tertiary education and research in Poland

The very long tradition of tourism education and research in Poland cannot be described easily due to different political systems during the last 70 years. This paper is organized as follows: first, a short historical background of higher education in a political and economic context is given. Second, it illuminates the important changes in education in Poland. The universities with the highest number of students in this field are presented and discussed. In Poland it is possible to choose tourism as a specialization in other study fields. Tertiary education institutions do not have to provide information to the central institution regarding their offers of specialization, which complicates the attempt to show the whole spectrum of tertiary education. The tourism units are situated not only in different departments, but also in diverse faculties. A short overview of possible organizational aspects is also given. Subsequently, the main research areas are analysed. Because the problem of tourism research comprises a broad range of research fields, it is hard to depict the most relevant research fields and to identify the main sources that should be investigated. This paper does not pretend to show all problems and subjects connected with tourism education and research phenomena, but rather attempts to highlight the complexity and limitations in identifying the most important issues of the complete system.


Introduction
Higher education in Poland in the political and economic context As a result of the contract after World War II, the Polish People's Republic was established as a communism satellite state. This period is characterized not only by many turbulences with very difficult stages, but also with so-called political 'thaws'. The guiding spirits of the transition in Poland were the Polish pope, John Paul II, and Lech Walesa, who founded and led the Solidarity trade union after a shipyard strike in Gdansk in 1980. Even before the fall of the Berlin Wall, in June 1989 'almostfree' elections took place in Poland.
Since the collapse of communism Poland's economy has grown more than in any other country in Europe. Moreover, Poland was the only EU country not to fall into recession during the 2008-09 global financial crisis. As reasons for Poland's economic miracle, Piątkowski (2013) has mentioned the concerted efforts towards European integration from the beginning of the transformation, expansion of both quantity and quality of education and the benefit from inflows of EU funds.
The history of higher education in Poland dates back to the fourteenth century -at which time the Cracow Academy was established. The current status is shaped by the time after the World War II. The situation of the tertiary education system in the period from 1945 to 1989 reflects the state of the political circumstances. Interlaced times of repression of independent scientists with times of relative freedom have influenced educational institutions (Dąbrowa-Szefler & Jabłecka-Prysłopska, 2006, p. 13). The situation in Poland was mostly better than that in other Soviet bloc countries, evidenced by the fact that Polish scientists participated in many international exchanges. In the time from 1946 to 1989 the number of tertiary education institutions grew from 54 to 97. Simultaneously, the number of tertiary students grew from 86,500 to 378,000. The political and economic transition in Poland has also influenced tertiary education by enabling more freedom and autonomy.
As Dąbrowa-Szefler and Jabłecka-Prysłopska (2006) state, the crucial trends in the first years of the transformation after 1989 contain:  extended autonomy of tertiary education institutions  a high rate of growth in the number of students  commercialization  changes in the structure of tertiary education (ownership structure, types of tertiary education institutions, types of programs and fields of study, diversification of education models)  increasingly manifested contradictions between the quantitative expansion  the need to maintain quality standards.
Characteristic for that period is also an increased demand for the tertiary sector, which is a result of the linkage between the level of qualification and the level of wages. The emergence of many non-public education institutions and a shift of part of the education costs onto students as a cause of financial problems in the education sector has been observed. The tuition fees were implemented not only for non-public education, but also for studying extramural and evening (part-time) programs in public institutions. The Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the Central Commission for Academic Degrees and Titles at the Office of the Prime Minister and The State Accreditation Committee can be regarded as important central-level institutions. One of the main current problems of the tertiary sector is a low expenditure on higher education as a percentage of GDP. Table 1 shows the situation between 2000 and 2013.
As one can see in this table, the absolute value of public expenditure on higher education has risen both continuously and immensely within the considered timeframe. Zooming in on the rather small portion of the local selfgovernment, a quite different picture emerges: while here the expenditure had increased even more impressively until 2007, this trend sharply reversed after 2009. Similarly, the public expenditure as a percentage of GDP first rose in the first half of the considered timeframe, but declined afterwards.
The total expenditure on tertiary education from public and private sources in Poland is only 1.3 per cent, which is much lower than the average in OECD countries (1.6%) and the EU21 (1.5%) (OECD, 2014, p. 234).
Regarding problems with academic teachers, the following items can be mentioned (Dąbrowa-Szefler & Jabłecka-Prysłopska, 2006):  a too-small number of academic teachers  an inadequate structure of academic staff (the share of senior researchers is too low)  the degree of habilitated doctor and the title of professor are often obtained at an advanced age  a major part of the costs related to the training of research staff is covered by public education institutions  many researchers have to take up a second job.
Dąbrowa-Szefler and Jabłecka-Prysłopska (2006) also indicate the following problems: no uniformly equal access to education; increasing unemployment amongst tertiary graduates in particular in the period immediately after graduation; and an underdeveloped system of cooperation with the external environment.
On the other side, the positive aspects of tertiary education should also be highlighted.
Very important is the wide access to higher education, which results in a large percentage of the population aged 30-34 having successfully completed tertiary studies. In 2013 this number stood at 40.5 per cent in Poland, compared to an EU average of 37.1 per cent (Eurostat 2014). Another strength of the Polish tertiary education system can be seen in the well-developed private sector. In the academic year 2013-14 the percentage of people studying in non-public institutions stood at 25.7 per cent of the overall number of students (Łysoń 2014, p. 33.).
The third-most important strength of the Polish tertiary education system is its institutional autonomy and the freedom of research and teaching. Internationalization of the tertiary education system should be also mentioned.
This brief characteristic of Polish tertiary education is not complete without examining several dates regarding the number of students. In the academic year 2013-14 the total number of tertiary students in Poland was 1,549,900 (including 36,000 foreign students, or 2.3% of all students). The main Polish tertiary education institutions are listed below in Table 2.
From the total number of 438 tertiary education institutions in Poland in the academic year 2013-14, 126 were state institutions with 1,151,300 students, accounting for 74.3 per cent of the overall registered tertiary students.
Since the academic year 2005-06, which comprised a record number of 1,953,800 students, the pool of students has been decreasing. During the last eight years this number has been fallen by 20.7 per cent overall. Last year, this decline accelerated to an astonishing 7.6 per cent compared to the year before. The reason for this downward trend can be found in a decreasing number of Polish citizens aged 19-24.

Tourism education at present
The Polish tertiary education system contains three levels of study: first-cycle programs ending with the Bachelors degree, secondcycle programs resulting in the Masters degree, long-cycle programs that lead directly to the   Masters degree and third-cycle programs culminating in a Doctoral degree. Two-cycle programs are available in 100 of the 106 existing fields of study. In law, psychology, pharmacy, medicine, dentistry and veterinary medicine only Masters programs are present. The study field 'tourism and leisure' can therefore be studied both in the first-and second-cycle program. Since 2011-12 a degree program in 'tourism economics' has also been offered by two universities. The rest of this paper uses the term 'students' to identify the specific subgroup of 'tourism students in the study field tourism and leisure', unless indicated otherwise. The analysis does not cover all students studying a tourism-related subject, because one can also study 'tourism economics' and tourism as specialization in other fields. Table 3 shows the number of students in a first-cycle program in the years 2012-14, divided by state and non-public institutions.
It is obvious that the number of students in both types of institutions is comparably large, with a slight majority in the state universities. Also, the number of students has declined by a similar amount during this time.
While the amount of second-cycle students is naturally much lower, the downward trend is even more pronounced than in the case of firstcycle students. This is especially true for the non-public institutions.
The following analysis shows the number of students distinguished by full-time and parttime students (mostly extramural).
As one can observe, the most significant change during this time is given be the rapid  As one can see, the numbers of the state and non-public institutions are comparable -with the exception of 2014, where the non-public entities offering a first-cycle program sharply declined. The number of institutions providing second-cycle programs is naturally lower, because only a portion of the institutions with first-cycle program are allowed to offer the second-cycle counterpart. The largest tertiary institutions with more than 500 students in 2014 are the following 21 entities listed in Table 7.
As one can see, the student distribution in the state and non-public universities is very similar, which is indicated by the fact that both three state and three non-public institutions have a student number larger than 1000. It should be highlighted once again that the students of different research fields than 'Tourism and leisure' are not considered in this table, and that the tertiary education institutions offering other programs are also not listed above.

The origins of tourism research in Poland
Kurek (2006) states that the first study exclusively considering tourism phenomena was the paper of Przeździecki from 1844, which dealt with travelling in Poland in the twelfth and fifteenth century. During the time of the end of the 19th and the beginning of the twentieth century several investigations related to spa and mountain tourism came into existence. The Tatra Mountains Society was established in 1874 and aimed at advertising the mountains. Generally speaking, the first research attempts concentrated mostly on people who travel, specific sorts of tourism (mostly spa, sports and holiday) and organizational aspects of societies occupied with tourism.
After World War II one can examine tourism research in Poland by means of its reflections in the following areas: monographs, the existence of scientific societies occupied with tourism, conferences and research projects, as well as the establishment of the first departments at universities devoted exclusive to tourism. Starting with the first point, one can observe the first appearances of monographs related to tourism research in the late 1960s.
The following enumeration does not cover all important publications on tourism in Poland during the time of the 1960s and 1970s, but instead attempts to present the main fields of interest at that time.
There exist several seminal monographs on tourism research that are still frequently quoted today. Two of the first canonical monographs are from Rogalewski (1967), who considers the spatial aspects of tourism, and from Warszyńska and Jackowska (1978), who present the basic problems of tourism based on 241 resources from all over the world. Przecławski (1973) deals with social aspects of tourism, thereby adding value to the development of the theory of tourism.
Interesting is one of the stated postulates found here, which says that tourism should form an element of social politics, and should therefore not only be regarded as a factor influencing economic development.
A highly important academic manual for students was published in 1978 by Gaworecki.
It provides information about the definition of tourism, factors influencing the development of tourism and aspects of services in tourism. A system analysis of processes in the tourism market with specific emphasis on the interrelationship between external and internal determinants was the subject of the work from Serek (1980). Tourist traffic was the starting point for her considerations. The complex process occurring in the tourism system is regarded as a result of a cooperation of the market system and its environment. The model was based on empirical research. Unfortunately, this script from the Economic University of Cracow seems not to be widely known, which might be due to the small circulation of 300 copies.
The work from Jagusiewicz (1986) discusses the main goals, directions and principles of the spatial tourism policy for the period 1986-95. Major objects of tourism policy are mentioned: 'improvement of the recreation conditions for the inhabitants of the ecologically endangered areas, counteracting the decapitalizing of the fixed assets and the recovery of the material base, subjection of the already shaped spatial structures and development of the foreign incoming tourism' (Jagusiewicz, 1986, p. 265). Tourism management was the subject of a monograph from Gołembski (1987). His work was an 'attempt to work out a system of indirectly affecting the behaviours of independent enterprises in tourism, inclining them to growth of efficiency' (Gołembski 1987, p. 183). Both Serek (1980 and Gołembski (1987) used system theory as a theoretical background for further considerations. This tradition is still used today, for example, in the work from Niezgoda (2006). The work edited by Libera (1973) in cooperation with many leading researchers (for example, Rogalewski, Łazarek and Wodejko) is related with the symposium of October 1973. The discussion covered the main problems of tourism in the following four sections: tourism economics, the legislative and organizational problems of tourism, the social and educational aspects of tourism and tourism geography.
Tourism economics covered problems such as: tourism management, the role of human resources in services and infrastructure and spatial-utilitarian relationships in tourism. The section of legislative and organizational problems of tourism analysed problems regarding the responsibility of tour operators, human resources and consequences of accidents in tourism. The division of social and educational aspects of tourism discussed particular problems of international tourism and the role of culture. The last section of tourism geography conferred about environmental attractiveness for international tourism flows. In Libera (1973) one can also find information about tourism education in ten European countries (Bark, Filipowicz & Wolski, 1973). At the University of Lodz the first research in the 1960s and 1970s concerned topics such as spas in Poland, the climate, as well as the influence of the environment on individuals (Liszewski, 2013). Another research field was connected with the natural environment and the requirement for developing special kinds of tourism, as well as tourism attraction. In 1977 the first unit dealing exclusively with tourism as a postgraduate study in the field of tourism was established. In 1981 the department for City Geography and Tourism was introduced. Within the department of geography, one has been able to study tourism geography since 1982, tourism geography and hospitality management since 1994 and tourism and recreation since 2004 (Liszewski, 2013). The main research fields of the University of Lodz within the last 30 years are: the main directions and structure of tourism flows, tourism functions within the region, the spatial aspects of tourism, city tourism and tourism products, culture tourism and hospitality.
Since 1998 one has been able to study tourism economics in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Szczecin. After the reorganization at that time, tourism management was offered in the Management Faculty, and since 2010-11 'tourism and recreation' can be taken in the faculty of Management and Economics of Services. The most important research areas of this university in the field of tourism are the cooperation between local governments and tourism for the creation of a tourism information system . The latter research aims to provide basic information about the relationship between the implementation of EU funds and the tourism attractiveness of a region (Panasiuk, 2013).
The main units of the University of Wrocław dealing with tourism are the Institute of Geography and Regional Development and the regional unit of the Institute of Tourism. Even from the 1950s interesting research connected with tourism geography could be found. Since the 1970s, seminal studies have been conducted in the department of regional geography. In 1972 the oldest single postgraduate course, namely the postgraduate course of tourism, commenced. The main research area concerned spatial aspects of tourism development (Wyrzykowski, 2013).
One problem hindering a reliable evaluation of the research in Poland is the fact that several universities (for example, the Jagiellonian University) do not offer the field of study 'tourism and leisure', but instead one can choose the specialization 'tourism' within geography. The Department of Tourism and Health Resort Management has existed within the Institute of Geography and Spatial Management since 1979. The research of this unit concentrates on aspects concerning the conditions, trends and forms of tourism development in Poland and the world, as well as the relationship between tourism and the natural environment and various spheres of social and economic development. The following issues are discussed: tourism in mountainous areas, historic cities and in suburban areas of large agglomerations, sustainable development, cross-border cooperation, health and rural tourism, and theoretical and methodological studies in the field of tourism geography.
A similar situation can be observed at the Warsaw School of Economics, which is one of the most prominent research institutes of tourism in Poland. Since 2015-16 it has offered a new degree program under the heading 'International tourism, hotel industry and leisure services' as a Masters program in English. Research contains international aspects of tourism, the role of tourism in the EU, attractiveness, hospitality, relationship between tourism, culture and natural environment, the role of tourism in the regional and local development, as well as legislative aspects of tourism.
The Poznań University of Economics and Business does not offer the degree program 'tourism and leisure', but 'tourism economics' instead. The Department of Tourism in the Faculty of International Business and Economics concentrates on the following research areas: impact of tourism on regional development (measuring tourism and investment attractiveness of regions, regional development strategies, local government influence on tourism development in regions),

Table 8 Main tertiary institutions with regard to number of students in 'tourism and leisure'
sustainable development in tourism, the perspective of tourism demand, the development of tourist destinations, urban tourism, destination governance, business tourism, marketing in travel and tourism, consumer behaviour in tourism, human resources in tourism, and entrepreneurship and the quality of services in tourism. The same situation can be found at the University of Economics in Katowice. The Department of Tourism analyses problems of tourism marketing, the role of networks, tourism management, tourism geography, legislative aspects of tourism, cooperation in tourism regions and the role of culture in tourism.

Current tourism research
The analysis of the main education centres in Poland in the previous section allows us to form a hypothesis that the main research areas depend on the location of the tourism education unit in the tertiary education institutions. Tourism can be included within the following institutes: physical, geography, economics, management or international economics. The following table shows the main tertiary institutions with regard to the number of students in 'tourism and leisure' and also contains information about the organizational structure.
Several attempts to determine the main tourism research areas in Poland have taken place (Gołembski, 2013a, Kurek, 2006, but these do not cover all issues concerning tourism research. The central question is how to approach the need for a systematic review of topics within the broad phenomenon of tourism. The main problem here is the interdisciplinary character of tourism. In order to not repeat the investigation from Gołembski (2013a), which highlights pioneering research as well as the most prominent studies until 2013, we will discuss the latest significant publications in this category. Unfortunately, it is problematic to identify the main fields because of the following reasons:  There is mostly a lack of information on the websites of the leading tourism units regarding the main research areas or the descriptions are kept very general.


No published journals with 'impact factor' exist in Poland. Taking into account that the following description does not fulfil the requirements of a systematic review and that it is merely a small step towards recognizing new trends of the research subjects, we subsequently provide an analysis of the monographs dealing with tourism in 2014 and 2015.
Regarding the research area the system of Gołembski (2013a) is very useful, who divides it into the following areas:  macroeconomic research (statistical measurements of tourism, economic effects of tourism, tourism market development, tourism satellite account)  regional studies (local development strategies, sustainable tourism, tourism area attractiveness, tourism space, tourism areas, spatial and functional development of regions)  microeconomic issues (service quality, innovativeness, entrepreneurship, the impact of multinational corporations on management of tourism enterprises).
University of Physical Education national library from 2014 and 2015 was 631. Most of them are mainly guidebooks, such that only 91 relevant publications remain after excluding these. Also, handbooks and plans were not further investigated, which resulted in the final number of 48 remaining monographs.
Innovation in tourism (Nawrot, Piechota & Szutowski, 2015;Kamińska, 2015;Zontek, 2014;Nuszkiewicz & Roman, 2014;Bednarczyk & Najda-Janoszka, 2014;Borodako, Berbeka & Rudnicki, 2015) is a frequent subject of monographs. Very interesting monographs are delivered by Gołembski (2015) which deal with research on tourism and include new international research achievements in four sections, which are also the research interest of the main author. The first one is connected with the meaning of time and the type of consumption of time in tourism. The next concerns problems of tourism management from a spatial perspective, followed by the condition of product development with regard to culture and entrepreneurship.
Problems of tourism education in Poland are the fourth theme, and it is investigated by Bosiacki (2015) and Bosiacki and Stuczyński (2015).
Other aspects of tourism appearing in monographic works are: nature and health aspects of tours (Pilis & Zych, 2015), crossborder cooperation (Zbaraszewski, Pieńkowski & Steingrube, 2014), nutrition in tourism (Kołożyn-Krajewska, 2014) and current methods in landscape research (Solon, Regulska & Affek, 2014). The fundamentals of tourism is also recently discussed by Balińska, Sieczko and Zawadka (2014) We also investigate the most important journals from 2014 and 2015. The selection of these is based on the following criteria: they are given a rating of importance by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education, they are available in the Index Copernicus, are published in cooperation with a unit of a tertiary education institution offering the study field 'tourism and leisure' and they have been published in the Polish language in 2014 or 2015. The following journals could be identified: Folia Turistica, Geotourism, Studia Periegetica, Research Bulletin -Leisure and Tourism, Research Journals of the University of Szczecin -Economic Problems of Tourism and Tourism and Recreation. This selection has many limitations. First, every journal is subject to a certain main topic, resulting in all articles published therein being within a limited thematic range. Second, several of the journals consider only special subjects of this topic. The

Studia
Periegetica was therefore not discussed, because the two issues in 2014 were thematic ones (safety and health in tourism and tourism in the region and in the city), and it does not contribute to an identification of the important research areas in Poland. Further limitations relate to the fact that many valuable papers have been excluded, because they are either published in nontourism journals or in international ones (for example, Czernek & Czakon, 2016). It is also important to highlight that not all issues from 2014 and 2015 were analysed, but only one or two. Not all papers are cited below, but only these representing the main interesting issues in the opinion of the author.
In the area of macroeconomic research, one can state that there is only seldom a subject of analysis in the investigated journals to be found. Exemplary exceptions are the following papers: Kućmierz, Mazurkiewicz and Walanus (2014) analyse tourist travel in Poland during 2000-2012, Wilkońska (2014 investigates the expenses of a tourist and Byczek (2014) explores the relationship between the emigration of Poles to Britain and incoming British tourists to Poland. Regional studies are often the subject of tourism papers. They relate frequently to sustainable tourism (Krupa, 2014a, Bernat, 2014Matulewski and Staszak, 2014;Dec and Krupa 2014), local governments (Banasik, 2014;Rapacz & Jaremen, 2014) and the role of tourism organizations (Zawadzka, 2014;Nowak, 2014;Fedyk & Morawski, 2014).

Conclusion
As Gołembski (2013b) states, Polish research on tourism is overall insufficient and its quality is mostly poor. This is also indicated by a lack of internationalization of Polish research, specifically a shortage of Polish science in the international scientific organization and an absence of Polish science on international conferences and of papers in seminal journals. Without changes in the financing of Polish science, one must remain pessimistic for the future. There are a few researchers that are internationally known. Bosiacki (2013) states that nowadays, a lack of interdisciplinary research on tourism is present. He observes a trend to very narrow and specific research subjects with a utilitarian character. On the other hand, Poland has a long tradition of highquality research in tourism, which should be maintained.
The number of students is no reliable indicator for research achievements. Problems with financing mentioned in the first part of this paper are also valid for tourism. Another problem is that in terms of the numbers of institutions and students, Poland's tourism education has rapidly developed over the last years, although this trend has recently been reversed in the number of students. On the other hand, research on tourism is still on an insufficient level with regard to internationalization, methodology and system investigation. One reason is the scarce financing of science. Also, institutional and mental barriers limiting cooperation between tourism units of different universities are responsible, especially when it comes to common research projects. A lack of new approaches and themes can also be the consequence of a falling mobility between departments and universities in Poland. The innovativeness of many academic centres is constrained due to a lack of mobility of Polish scientists. The standard approach today is still to remain at a single institution throughout a complete scientific career.
The limitations of this paper are multi-layered. Very often, it proved hard to find information about research of the tertiary education institutions. Also, the access to reliable statistical data concerning the number of students was restricted. The discussed numbers of students and tertiary education institutions only cover the main study field, namely 'tourism and leisure'. Future research is therefore required. For instance, one could adopt system theory to investigate all aspects of research fields in tourism. This challenge would require a cooperation between many Polish scientists and a limitation of the personal ambitions of single persons and institutions.