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Notice: This manuscript may be cited as: Ivy, R. L. & Copp, C. B. (1999).Tourism patterns and problems
in East Central Europe. Tourism Geographies, 1(4), 425-442.
Tourism patterns and problems in
East Central Europe
Russell L. Ivy and Charles B. Copp
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Department of Geography and Geology, Florida Atlantic University, USA
Abstract
Tourism development in post-communist East Central Europe is characterized by
growing numbers of international visitors. The region, however, has inherited
infrastructural and policy limitations that perpetuate two distinct tourism spaces
within most nations. International tourists remain very concentrated in the capital
cities and a few resort locations, while domestic tourists display a much more
diffused pattern of travel. The infrastructure that international tourists demand,
and the information they require in making holiday decisions, is still quite
geographically limited in East Central Europe.
Keywords: tourism development, centrally-planned economies, market transition,
Eastern Europe, Slovakia
Introduction
As East Central Europe makes the transition to a liberal market economy,
socioeconomic and political upheavals have become the norm. In particular, many of the Eastern bloc countries are finding that the tremendous
buildup of heavy industrial infrastructure that was favoured in their
centrally-planned economy of the past is often not competitive in today's
global marketplace. Thus, the restructuring of the economy has witnessed
a decline in industrial importance for many of these nations, and a rise
in the service sector, which had never really been promoted to anywhere
near the same degree as was industry during the communist era. A 1991
report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) argues that the service sector in general has been underdeveloped
R
1461-6688 © Taylor & Francis 1999
Tourism Geographies 1(4), 1999, 425-442
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426 Ivy and Copp
in East Central Europe, and that its growth is necessary to assist these
countries in surviving in their new economic environment.
This article describes the development of tourism in post-communist
East Central Europe (i.e. that area of Central Europe that was formerly
governed by communist regimes). Tourism is currently receiving a great
deal of attention from regional governments and the private enterprise
alike. A discussion of the importance and development of tourism in the
communist era will show that the patterns and problems of tourism in
this region (both past and present) largely resemble those of developing
nations, and that a discrete, 'two-track' economy (foreign versus domestic)
exists in the tourism sector, thus creating discrete tourism spaces. Urry
(1990), among others, argues that tourism has greatly changed with the
movement towards capitalism, but such change is not without difficulty.
A review of the literature along with the mapping of tourism patterns for
selected countries is used to describe the problems that the region faces
today in developing tourism. Finally, the results of a tourist survey in
Bratislava, Slovakia are presented to help highlight some additional problems in marketing tourism in East Central Europe.
Tourism planning in communist Europe
Even though much of East Central Europe has favourable natural and
cultural conditions for tourism and recreation development, tourism has
not typically been as major a source of income in comparison to the
region's Western European neighbours (OECD 1991). An abundance of
natural and cultural attractions alone are not enough to ensure successful
tourism development (Bachvarov 1997). During the communist years the
region placed less emphasis on developing the service sector, as the main
goal was to increase the output of industrial commodities. Adequate infrastructure for transport, food, lodging and entertainment facilities, as well
as travel agencies and tour operators was lacking in both quality (at least
by Western European standards) and quantity (Bacharov 1997).
Just as in the USSR, the planning and management of tourism throughout the region was given low priority, and was typically assigned to a state
planning office that delegated the organization of such activity to a national
tourist agency such as Cedok in Czechoslovakia, IBUSZ in Hungary and
Balkantourist in Bulgaria (Arefyev SsC Mieczkowski 1991; Carter 1991;
Compton 1991; Vodenska 1992; Jaakson 1996; Kreck 1998).
These agencies played a strong role, in particular, in guiding and
directing tourists from outside the Iron Curtain to 'low security risk' areas
and higher priced accommodation facilities (Arefyev & Mieczkowski 1991;
Shaw 1991). Typically, tourism development was one small part in the
long-term economic plans of central government agencies. As reported by
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Place: Tourism patterns and problems
427
Allcock (1991: 257), there was a 'tendency of central planners in socialist
systems to think in terms of the expansion of aggregate "production"
targets without giving adequate attention to questions of the integration
of services, the standards achieved and the need to market the product
properly'.
Thus, in the centrally-planned economies of post-World War II Europe,
tourism development took a very different path from that in Western
Europe (Hall 1991; Williams & Shaw 1991; Mihalik 1992; Pearce 1992;
Rafferty 1993; Davidoff et al. 1995; Borocsz 1996; Hollier 1997). Tourism
in Eastern Europe was planned with the goal of achieving a high return,
in the form of foreign hard currencies, on selected investments. As such,
minimal tourist marketing and modest infrastructure was put in place in
a limited number of potentially lucrative geographic areas. Buckley and
Witt (1990) showed that comparing such measures as arrivals and receipts,
as well as proportion of national product and total exports, the centrallyplanned economies of Europe lagged far behind their Western counterparts,
as illustrated in Table 1.
International versus domestic tourists in communist Europe
Prior to the 1960s, international tourism was given much less focus than
domestic tourism throughout much of Eastern Europe. Buckley and Witt
(1990:12) argued that this led 'to a predominately inward looking industry
not geared to international standards and foreign tastes'. International
tourism in these earlier years was focused on coastal Yugoslavia (largely
Table 1 International tourist arrivals and receipts for Europe and the world,
1986-1994
Year
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
International arrivals
World
European
total
share
(000s)
(%)
330746
65.42
356440
64.90
381824
63.04
415376
64.35
459233
62.43
466044
61.77
503617
61.02
518258
60.54
546260
60.38
CEE*
share
(%)
9.85
10.58
12.32
11.74
10.17
11.87
12.23
13.36
13.60
International receipts
European
World
total
share
(US$ mill.) (%)
54.99
140019
171319
56.26
197692
54.15
211366
52.01
264708
54.39
271827
52.73
308596
52.71
313963
50.16
346674
50.43
CEE*
share
(%)
1.37
1.39
1.31
1.24
1.83
2.75
3.08
3.88
4.15
CEE = Former Communist Nations of Central and Eastern Europe excluding
Albania and the former Yugoslavia. Source: World Tourism Organization.
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428 Ivy and Copp
present-day Croatia and Slovenia) and a few urban centres (such as
Budapest and Prague) and health spas (such as Karlovy Vary in the presentday Czech Republic). Increasing numbers of Western tourists to other
areas of the Eastern bloc came about as a result of targeted planning
starting in the 1960s as the region sought to obtain increasingly needed
hard currency (Matley 1976; Carter 1991; Compton 1991).
According to Bachvarov (1997: 43), Bulgaria, for example, was developed to be 'the most prominent foreign tourism receiving country' of the
Eastern bloc, and indeed functioned as such from the 1960s until the end
of the 1980s. Rapid growth in international tourist flows (at least by
Eastern bloc standards) to Bulgaria began with the selected development
of large tourist complexes along the Black Sea Coast, such as Golden
Sands (18,500 beds) and Sunny Beach (24,500 beds). As reported by
Vodenska (1992), however, the lodging infrastructure was often accompanied by inadequate development of restaurants, bars and entertainment
facilities.
While international, especially Western, tourism developed in a halting
manner, throughout much of the Eastern bloc domestic tourism flourished
(Borocz 1990; Carter 1991; Hall 1991). Trade unions, state industrial
enterprises and youth organizations sponsored large numbers of holidays
as part of the social development of the people. The spas, which had
traditionally served the luxury market, were now oriented towards maintaining the health of the working class. Borocz (1990) has noted that the
difficulty in getting exit visas for international travel also restricted holidays to domestic locations. As tourism was no longer a privilege of the
rich, but a 'right' of the people, a tremendous rise in the domestic market
occurred which put great pressure on the accommodation facilities in most
resort areas.
Even as late as the 1980s, domestic tourists comprised the overwhelming
majority of visitors to tourist regions outside of the capital cities, as most
foreign visitor flows were centred on the capital cities only. Moreover, the
foreign tourists who did come were largely from neighbouring socialist
countries (Carter 1991). In the late 1970s, almost 95% of the foreign
visitors to Czechoslovakia, for example, were from Eastern bloc countries. It should be noted, however, that the number of Western tourists
to Hungary climbed significantly during the 1980s from 1.2 million in
1980 to 2.2 million in 1988 (Compton 1991) due largely to a liberalization of exchange rate policies and greater ease of entry (AESEI 1989;
Borocsz 1990; Compton 1991). Hungary's international tourists, however,
were still largely concentrated in Budapest and the Lake Balaton area
(Buckley &c Witt 1990).
Thus, what developed in most of the Eastern bloc nations were two
highly discrete tourism spaces. The international, especially Western,
tourist flow was highly concentrated in most countries to the capital city
Place: Tourism patterns and problems
429
and sometimes one or two other districts, while the domestic tourist flow
was much more expansive geographically. Even in the few areas of
geographic overlap (i.e. those areas popular with both international and
domestic tourists), such as capital cities, the domestic and international
tourists were often in 'isolation' or spatial separation from one another,
particularly with respect to accommodations. This was directly planned
by the national tourism development agencies.
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Problems for international tourism development
Although the number and share of international visitors to East Central
Europe has grown in the post-communist 1990s (Tables 1 and 2), problems
still exist that limit the ability of these nations to market themselves and to
live up to their touristic potential. Many of these problems result from the
planning and development schemes of the earlier communist era. Hall
(1991), for example, cites infrastructural constraints related to the quality
and quantity of accommodation facilities, poor quality staff training,
discouragement of entrepreneurial activity, and poor marketing and promotion of tourism. His work also discusses the problems associated with the
high concentration ratio (percentage of international visitors from a country's top three markets) of the Eastern bloc countries entering the 1990s,
ranging from 51.7% in Romania to 83.6% in the former Czechoslovakia.
The need for diversification extends beyond the problem of highly
concentrated source markets. For example, the lack of diversification of
the tourist product in Bulgaria has created regional economic disparity
(due to the overly concentrated buildup along the Black Sea), severe seasonality problems and a strain on resources (Vodenska 1992). Balkantourist
has attempted to diversify the nation's tourism product by promoting
mountain and spa tourism in the Bulgarian interior, but the distribution
of existing facilities and infrastructure does not coincide with the variety
and location of these alternative tourism and recreation resources. The
quality, quantity and distribution of accommodation facilities remains a
primary issue. By the late 1980s, almost half Bulgaria's bed capacity
Table 2 International tourist arrivals for Europe by sub-region, 1990-1994
(% of European Total)
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
Western Europe
Southern Europe
E/Central Europe
Northern Europe
E. Mediterranean
39.71
32.11
16.30
9.29
2.59
39.71
29.52
19.21
8.96
2.60
39.03
28.61
20.05
9.03
3.27
37.47
28.21
22.07
9.25
3.00
35.91
29.01
22.54
9.53
3.01
Source: World Tourism Organization
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430 Ivy and Copp
consisted of rooms in private homes, and most hotels that had been built
by that time were poor in quality and often without heating facilities (as
they were planned and developed for the summer season only). Another
issue for Bulgaria, as well as many other East Central European nations,
is the high degree of transit traffic (tourists quickly passing through enroute
to another destination), which comprised 63.5 percent of international
visits to Bulgaria in 1991 (Vodenska 1992). Such travel patterns shorten
the average stay and reduce the average tourist spending within the
country.
Similar to Bulgaria, Allcock (1991) reported that in the former
Yugoslavia, more than half of the tourist overnight stays were generated
during a two month period (July and August). The focus on the shortduration, high tourist season was the norm throughout the communist
controlled portion of Europe. Even though the former Yugoslavia had a
variety of tourist options, only coastal resort locations were marketed
aggressively. The other regions had serious problems with quality of accommodations and other tourist infrastructure that resulted from a failure to
modernize over time. Additionally, there were serious shortages of trained
staff, particularly senior managers, and local entrepreneurs. Oppermann
(1993) argues that much of post-communist Eastern Europe exhibited
tourism development patterns similar to Third World nations, with international visitors being overwhelmingly concentrated in the capital city, due
to their greater ties to the global economic system, leaving the rest of the
region underdeveloped and remote from international tourism.
Regional tourism patterns in Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia
Figures 1 to 4 identify basic tourism patterns for Hungary, Slovakia and
Slovenia, three countries in post-communist East Central Europe, in 1995
and 1996. To assess the concentration issue, the importance of the capital
city in the tourism economy of each country was measured using Mergard's
Index, which is a ratio of the capital's percentage of total accommodations to that city's share of the nation's population (Oppermann 1993).
A value greater than 1 indicates an overconcentration of tourism infrastructure on the capital city, and is typical for most developing countries.
For Hungary (Figure 1), tourism was clearly concentrated in 1995 in two
main regions, Budapest and the Lake Balaton area (the cluster of three
administrative districts in the southwest). Both of these areas were the
favoured destinations of international visitors (as well as domestic) to
Hungary in the past, and this trend continues. Because of Lake Balaton,
the Mergard's Index for Hungary was a somewhat modest 0.64, indicating that not all tourism is concentrated in the capital city. However,
international arrivals are still almost exclusively concentrated in these two
Place: Tourism patterns and problems
431
Percent of Stays
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|
jO-4.9
[Sal 5-9.9
Average Stay
I JO-2
{ H 2.1-6.9
•17-12.2
DF Ratio
|
10-0.5
nm 0.6-1
1.1-10.4
113 km
Figure 1 Selected tourism statistics: Hungary, 1995.
432
Ivy and Copp
Percent of Stays
|
10-4.9
[ f H 5-9.9
WKM 10-13.9
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Bratislava
Average Stay
|
12.1-6.4
PF~17-12.2
Bratislava
DF Ratio
|
1 0 - 0.59
|
10.6-1.09
mm 1.1 -16.93
Bratislava
98 km
Figure 2 Selected tourism statistics: Slovakia, 1996.
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Place: Tourism patterns and problems 433
major destinations, as is evidenced by the domestic/foreign (D/F) ratio
given in the bottom map in Figure 1 (values below 1 indicate areas dominated with foreign visitors). The average length of stay (centre map) is
only differentiated strongly in the resort region of Lake Balaton which
tends to be more associated with family vacations.
The 1996 data for Slovakia (Figure 2) also yielded a concentrated
pattern, with a very high Mergard's Index of 1.45 indicating the dominance of the capital city of Bratislava in the nation's tourism economy.
A high proportion of overnight stays was found in the capital city and
the skiing region in the High Tatras (not shown in the figures); however,
districts with high average lengths of stay were somewhat dispersed. Of
interest is the fairly strong relationship between the districts with a low
percentage of the nation's total overnight stays and high D/F ratios (indicating that few foreign visitors frequented these areas).
In Slovenia (Figure 3), the capital of Ljubljana (identified by the smallest
polygon at the centre of the map) had a Mergard's Index value of a mere
0.23, indicating that it was not a dominant tourist destination in the
country. The coastal region in the southeast (centring on resort cities like
Portoroz) and the skiing areas to the north (with quaint tourist villages
like Kranjska Gora) captured a large share of both domestic and international visitors. These areas, plus other spa regions in eastern Slovenia,
showed up stronger than the capital for average length of stay. The smaller
concentration of Slovenia's tourism economy in the nation's capital was
largely a combination of the smaller size of Ljubljana (pop. 276,000)
compared to the other capitals discussed, the high emphasis placed on
'spot' tourism planning of selected resort areas during the years that
Slovenia was part of communist Yugoslavia, the attractive coastal environment (not available in Hungary or Slovakia), and the reputation of
northern Slovenia as a low-cost alternative to alpine skiing in nearby
Austria and Switzerland. The D/F ratio for Slovenia showed that foreigners
strongly outnumber domestic visitors only in Ljubljana and two other
areas, indicating a fairly concentrated international pattern. Comparing
the top and bottom maps in Figure 3 implies that the areas that were
popular with international tourists were also highly popular with domestic
tourists. In Slovenia, the separation of tourist spaces in 1995 was, therefore, less severe than in the Slovak Republic and in Hungary. This was
due to the small size of the nation combined with a high diversity of
touristic potential that could be built upon existing infrastructure (Gibb
& Haas 1996; Gulic 1996; Hall 1998; Koscak 1998).
Figure 4 maps out hotel accommodation patterns for Hungary, Slovakia
and Slovenia during the years examined here. A location quotient (LQ)
for bed nights was calculated for each country based on the ratio of an
individual region's share of hotel bed nights to the region's share of total
hotel bed capacity. LQ values greater than 1 indicate that the region's
434
Ivy and Copp
Percent of Stays
0-4.9
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"^5-9.9
M 10-30.2
Average Stay
I
10-3
r~|3.1-6.9
EffiS 7-12.2
DF Ratio
| — | 0 - 0.5
gH 0.6 -1
• I 1.1-9.8
0
Figure 3
Selected tourism statistics: Slovenia, 1995.
61 km
Place: Tourism patterns
and problems
435
Hotel Bed
Location Quotient
Hungary
0 - 0.89
0.9-1.09
1.1-1.69
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0
113 km
Hotel Bed
Location Quotient
Slovakia
|
|
| 0 - 0.89
10.9-1.09
I X H 1 1 - 1 69
0
98 km
Hotel Bed
Location Quotient
Slovenia
|
1 0.65 - 0.75
f~~] 0.75 -1.06
PHI 1.06-1.69
0
Figure 4
Hotel accommodation patterns.
61 km
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436 Ivy and Copp
share of the demand for hotel beds is greater than its share of capacity,
while a value of less than 1 indicates that the region's share of demand
is less than its share of capacity for hotel beds. While other accommodations (such as private rooms and campsites), of course, exist, hotels
are often the main generator of bed nights and tourist income in a region.
This crude measure can help identify areas that are potentially undersupplied (LQ greater than 1 and darker shading pattern on the maps)
with hotel beds, an issue that can be highly important for tour wholesalers who put together travel packages for international visitors. For
all three countries, areas with LQ values greater than 1 are those in
which the availability of private rooms for tourists has risen dramatically in the 1990s. This is also a sign that the quantity, and perhaps
the quality, of hotel accommodations in these areas has been underdeveloped.
For all three countries, the capital city showed a high LQ value, though
this was somewhat less in Slovenia. In addition, all three countries tend
to show higher LQ values in areas that were largely frequented by domestic
tourists and which were not well developed as tourist destinations during
the communist era. Hungary's Lake Balaton area was relatively stable in
its accommodations LQ, while some of the domestic tourism regions were
seen as undersupplied. For Slovakia, a clear east-west transition was
apparent, with the less developed eastern portions of the country experiencing demands for bed nights that were higher than the region's share
of the country's bed capacity. In Slovenia, high bed demand was seen on
the coast and in popular domestic tourism areas in the eastern half of the
country. It would appear that by the mid-1990s these underdeveloped
domestic tourism regions were ripe for accommodations development and
investment.
Survey of international visitors to Bratislava, Slovakia
From a regional development perspective, a wide geographic disparity in
international tourist flows and concentrations is problematic. To add to
the understanding of this disparity, interviews with international visitors
were conducted in Slovakia (the country with the highest concentration
pattern). On-site, personal interviews with tourists in Bratislava's Old
Town Square and the Bratislava Castle district were conducted during
the middle of August 1996 and the first week of March 1997 to capture
both a peak tourist period and an off-peak period. The interviews were
conducted in the English or German languages due to the limitations
of the interviewers. However, very few visitors that were stopped were
unable to communicate in one of these languages, at least at the level
required to answer the basic questions from the survey.
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Place: Tourism patterns and problems
437
For each survey period, one weekend day (Saturday) and one weekday
(Thursday) were selected to interview international tourists and excursionists (stays of less than 24 hours). No domestic tourists were
interviewed. The August 1996 round of surveying yielded 87 responses
(54% of whom were excursionists), while the March 1997 round yielded
only 39 responses (41% excursionists). It should be noted that there were
fewer tourists at the Old Town Square in March as this was an off-season
month, and though the weather was sunny it was unseasonably cold during
that particular week. Moreover, the problem of being restricted to the
German and English languages, which was almost a non-issue in August,
was slightly more pronounced in March as more of the visitors were from
the former communist block countries (about 15% of whom could not
be communicated with) than from Western Europe or elsewhere. Table 3
gives a summary of selected trip characteristics of the respondents. It
should also be noted that the ski areas in the central and northern sections
of the country attract a fair number of international visitors during the
winter months who bypass the capital, though the purpose of the interviews was specifically to address the tourism concentration factor in
Bratislava.
Most of the respondents fell into one of two categories. Many were on
a short stop in the Slovak Republic as part of a package tour that included
multiple countries. For these travellers, the stop in Bratislava was either
scheduled as part of the package, or a 'free day' on a planned stop in
Vienna, which is a short distance across the border. The second main category of respondents consisted of Austrians on day trips across the border
to take advantage of lower prices for food, retail and even service items.
The short average length of stay of the respondents in both periods was
Table 3 Selected trip characteristics of foreign visitors to Bratislava, Slovakia
Length of stay in Slovakia
Percentage visiting places other than
the capital city
Package tour:
Independent
Other
Business
Pleasure
Main tourist activity:
Shopping
Sightseeing
Other
Respondents (n)
August 1996
March 1997
1.75 days
1.22 days
28%
69%
25%
6%
47%
53%
14%
32%
64%
4%
61%
39%
42%
39%
19%
87
59%
27%
14%
39
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438
Ivy and Copp
brought down, of course, by the inclusion of excursionists in the survey.
However, it is worth restating that even those staying overnight in Slovakia
were largely passing through the nation en route to other destinations. If
a nation does not seem to draw tourists on its own (i.e. it is with other
countries), then it is likely that the flows would be highly concentrated
in select destinations due to tight trip itineraries.
A few interesting, but perhaps expected, seasonal differences were
brought out by the responses. The length of stay was shorter among
the March visitors, and fewer visited other sites in Slovakia outside
of the capital. This may be a reflection of the behavioural differences of
winter travellers versus summer travellers to Europe, but could also be a
reflection of a smaller number of package tours during the winter that
include the capital of the Slovak Republic. It is important to point out
that many (49%) of the respondents visiting Bratislava mentioned that
they probably would not have visited Slovakia at all, had it not been
either attached to a tour package with a variety of other destinations that
piqued their travel interest, or was along the route to their final travel
destination. Note also the higher percentage of business travellers during
the March survey period, which is typical of an off-season pattern.
For respondents who were visiting the capital only (76% overall), the
survey allowed them to list as many reasons as necessary to explain their
concentrated travel behaviour in Slovakia. Table 4 is a summary of the
responses that were given by at least 5% of the interviewees. The top
two responses again show the dominance of visitors who were in the
country on short stops as part of a travel package, or merely across
the border from Austria for a quick weekend trip. A perusal of the
remaining responses on the list, however, helps identify some potentially
important regional problems.
Perhaps Slovakia gets a light treatment by tour wholesalers who put
travel packages together due to marketing and quality problems (perceived
or real). Certainly if tour wholesalers have difficulty assessing the travel
potential of an area, then it is even less likely that individuals will be able
to do so. In the case of Slovakia a marketing problem exists. Most of the
respondents surveyed knew very little about the touristic potential of
Bratislava, and much less information about anywhere else in the nation.
Table 4 Respondents' reasons for visiting Bratislava only
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
Package holiday only included the capital
Lack of time in travel itinerary
Lack of knowledge/information about additional destinations
Concern about quality of food/lodging
Concern about language barriers
Lack of interest in the rest of Slovakia
Poor public transport infrastructure
48%
44%
40%
29%
16%
12%
5%
Place: Tourism patterns and problems
439
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At most, the interviewees gave vague answers about 'thinking that maybe
one could ski in some parts of the country'. The food and lodging quality
issue, whether merely perceived or a reality, is probably related to quantity as well. Certainly from the perspective of tour operators, a lack of
quality and quantity of accommodations (particularly facilities that can
accommodate large groups) could be a hindrance. Additionally, the
lower levels of education often associated with rural areas may indeed
mean that fewer people are available to speak English, German or other
languages. It should be noted here that concern over the language issue
was strongest among American and British respondents from the survey.
Conclusions
As Buckley and Witt (1990) have argued, the upgrading of the total tourist
product (perhaps through foreign joint ventures which can help assure
product quality), as well as improved marketing techniques, is of crucial
importance for equitable tourism development in the East Central Europe
region. The former Eastern bloc countries are in the position of having
to upgrade, and to some degree 'reinvent', themselves as tourist destinations, but not because of reaching the end of their product life cycle
(market saturation and exhaustion), as is the situation for many of their
Western European neighbours (Zimmermann 1991; Formica & Uysal
1996). The former lack of concern over international tourist standards
for quality and quantity is probably the more serious issue. Thus, these
countries are having to deal with vast regional disparities in the distribution of international (particularly Western European) tourists, with
significant economic consequences. The survey conducted in Bratislava
confirms the lack of proper tourist infrastucture and adequate tourist information on other potential destinations in Slovakia.
As noted earlier, many of the East Central European nations really have
two discrete tourism spaces: international and domestic. Much of this
pattern is tied to accommodation space and their associated amenities. As
reported by Johnson (1997: 444), Western tourists generally spend more
on their vacations, especially on accommodations, and as such 'require
high quality accommodation of an international standard'. The internationalization of Eastern Europe's tourism should include the international
lodging industry. This would establish a known quality in hotel accommodations (along with the power of their worldwide computer reservation
systems) which would be valued by tour wholesalers. A tremendous
amount of privatization of formerly state-owned hotels has been occurring throughout the region, but the highest quality facilities still tend to
be concentrated in the capital cities and a few other high-volume international tourist resorts. In Hungary, for example, all of the five-star hotels
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440 Ivy and Copp
and nearly two-thirds of the four-star properties are located in Budapest,
with the Lake Balaton area also an important clustering of the nation's
high-quality lodging facilities (Johnson 1997).
Tourism as a regional development tool, particularly for lagging rural
areas, has been promoted throughout Europe (and elsewhere) with mixed
results (Kariel 1989; Unwin 1996). Eastern Europe's transition to a market
economy has left some areas in dire straits, particularly as many of the
region's large industrial complexes have failed to compete effectively in
the new economic environment. This has led to a debate over the effective realities of creating spatial equity in the region's standard of living
(Barta 1992; Zaniewski 1992). Some politicians and economists see the
expansion of tourism (particularly international) as a potential solution.
As the new federal governments seem to continue their focus on known,
tried-and-true tourism products, perhaps marketing and planning policy
at the subnational level (where the level of concern and stakes are higher),
as is done by neighbouring Austria (Zimmermann 1990; Downes 1995),
would be an answer to help diffuse the international visitors and their
money more equitably.
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Submitted July 1998; Revised January 1999
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Biographical notes
Russell L. Ivy is Associate Professor of Geography at Florida Atlantic
University in Boca Raton, Florida. His research interests are air transportation, tourism and regional development. (Department of Geography
and Geology, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL 33431: e-mail:
[email protected])
Charles B. Copp is a candidate for a Master of Arts degree in Geography
at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida. His interests include
regional development and tourism.