Meeting with Mr. Paweł Niewiadomski, President of the Polish Chamber of Tourism

We have discussed how future tourism trends look like, the most critical challenges the tourism industry is facing now, and what lessons are learned from the pandemic. As was underlined during the meeting, the tourism and hospitality sectors have been overwhelmed by the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. Although countries are actively battling the virus, the question is how to rebuild and re-emerge from the crisis.

According to our speaker, Poland seems to be doing pretty well. However, more needs to be done in a coordinated way as tourism services are very interdependent. A last-minute announcement of grounding flights and a lack of coordinated strategy for the tourism industry makes the whole situation even more dramatic. Lifting travel restrictions, restoring traveler confidence, and preparing a comprehensive tourism recovery plan to rebuild destinations, seem to be the solutions for the current situation. These actions are essential, but recovery is expected to start later and be slower than previously foreseen.