http://hdl.handle.net/11089/46313 2026-04-06T07:03:04Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/46790 Rekreacja ruchowa i turystyka aktywna studentów kierunku turystyka i rekreacja na Uniwersytecie Łódzkim Dronka, Joanna; Maro-Kulczycka, Marta; Terka, Joanna Stasiak, Andrzej The educational goals of Tourism and Recreation studies at the Faculty of Geography of the University of Lodz make one think that active tourism and physical recreation should be priority activities for the students in the field as far as their leisure activities are concerned. Answering the question about whether this is indeed the case served as the point of departure for research carried out among the students of Tourism and Recreation, University of Lodz, which resulted in the present paper. The main aim of the study was to investigate the issue of physical activity of first-, second- and third-year students of Tourism and Recreation with regard to active tourism and physical recreation as well as to answer a number of questions concerning these two forms of activity. The questions particularly referred to the scope, participants and location of given forms of physical recreation and active tourism that the students take part in and whether studying Tourism and Recreation affects their decisions in this respect. The paper distinguishes between qualified tourism (requiring certain qualifications, permits) and active tourism based on physical activity, but not entailing any formal requirements. Research discussed in the present paper was conducted during the 2007/2008 academic year and involved a questionnaire survey. It was intended to be thorough, but taking the results into consideration it has to be regarded as a pilot study. On the whole, 78 people were examined, including 55 females. The greatest number of the participants were third-year students, with second-year students representing the smallest portion of the sample. The average age of the informants was 20.9. The study points to the most popular forms of active tourism (mountain walking, skiing, snowboarding, cycling, lowland walking, canoeing) and physical recreation (swimming, walking, cycling, skiing, skating, snowboarding, team games, running). To sum up, the results of the survey demonstrate that the majority of Tourism and Recreation students are involved in active tourism and physical recreation. However, they primarily choose well-known sports and no one reports doing rare or extreme sports. Also, the role of qualified tourism seems insignificant since only 11 people declare they possess any qualifications in this respect. Moreover, the study shows that studying Tourism and Recreation has influence on both the increased interest in active tourism and physical recreation and the choice of activities. The activities that form part of the curriculum tend to be chosen most frequently. Apart from this, most students claim they are more interested in sports promoted by the university, such as skiing or canoeing. The main area of students’ activity is Poland, while in the case of recreation the dominating location is Lodz Province. Unfortunately, there can be observed a negative phenomenon of decrease in the number of people taking part in active tourism: among first-year students it is 90%, whereas among third-year students it is only about 70%. This might suggest that some action is needed to enhance the positive effect of active tourism trips organized by the university and to make the offer wider so that less popular forms of active tourism and physical recreation should be promoted. 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/46789 Regional aspects of the pricing specificity in tourist services Kyfyak, Olexander Stasiak, Andrzej 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/46788 Uwarunkowania zarządzania przedsiębiorstwem turystycznym Kołodziej, Michał Stasiak, Andrzej A tourism business is one of the basic elements of the functioning of the tourism market in economy. It is defined as a unit whose aim is to satisfy the needs of tourists or other businesses involved in the tourism industry oriented towards profit-making. The functioning of a tourism business is characterized by a number of features, the most relevant of which are presented below: 1) a tourism business is a tourism product maker and service provider, 2) the products made by a tourism business cannot be stored, 3) capital is the economic basis of a tourism business, whereas the operation of such a business is subject to tourism legislation. As any company, a tourism business has precisely defined goals of its operation. These goals make up a coherent hierarchy, where the major aim entails secondary goals. The most important aspect, which serves as a reference point in the structure of goals, determines the mission and vision of the business. This results in specific measures and affects the strategy of the functioning of a business. The basis is made up by instrumental goals which constitute the core activity of a tourism business. Another factor which influences managing a business is its environment. Traditionally, two types of environment are distinguished: the close one, being in direct relation to the business, and the remote one (macro-environment), which is in indirect relation to the business. For tourism businesses, a different sort of classification of environment types is relevant, namely one focusing on the elements forming the environment. The literature distinguishes: 1) the natural environment: it significantly influences the development of tourism in a particular area; this concept embraces broadly understood environ-ment conservation, which results from the ecological awareness in a given country as well as from the regulations established by international organizations, 2) the economic environment: an important factor is the competitiveness of tourism industry; this affects the economics of businesses and verifies the market realities of the sector, 3) the socio-cultural environment: it generates demand for tourism products and services; furthermore, this environment determines the segmentation of the market and the target group of consumers of tourism products and services, 4) the technological environment: it determines the dynamics of the development of tourism services; tourism businesses significantly changed their management policies due to technological development (online reservation systems, the development of communications, the speed of information transfer). A tourism business operates within a global economic model. One of the consequences of this fact is increasing internationalisation and focus on structuring international marketing strategies. Moreover, the global functioning of a business is complemented by the development in information technology. New technologies narrow the gap between the suppliers and the consumers of tourism products and services. The business management policy should be flexible enough to enable adjustment to global conditions. The dynamics of change requires more and more responses to phenomena occurring in the environment of the business. This results in working out the mechanisms that facilitate analysing and identifying the areas of functioning, including a global perspective. Another factor influencing the way a tourism business is managed is the natural environment, more precisely disasters and cataclysms around the world. This is concerned with news in the media, which may strongly affect the intensity of tourism traffic. This implies that media play an important role in consumers’ decisions concerning their holiday destinations. They also have an effect on tourism supply and demand by conveying, sometimes misleading, information about the events around the world. Thus, tourism businesses operate on a coherent global tourism market. The way they operate depends on a number of factors. Most of the factors affect these businesses in an indirect way. The task of tourism businesses is to develop a model of action that is flexible with respect to their environment. In other cases, management of such businesses is influenced by tourism organisations (WTO, national and regional organisations) which facilitate the functioning of businesses on the market. 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/11089/46787 Zastosowanie mapy mentalnej do badania percepcji. Studium porównawcze na przykładzie studentów polskich i słowackich Čuka, Peter; Gregorová, Bohuslava Stasiak, Andrzej The comparative study presents certain features of perception of Poland and Slovakia by Polish (53 informants in the University of Lodz branch in Tomaszow Mazowiecki) and Slovak students (87 informants in the University of Presov). The aims of the research were the following: – a comparison of knowledge of Polish and Slovak students regarding tourist centres and regions in a neighbouring country, – a subjective assessment of a neighbouring country as a tourist desti-nation, – creating a mental map – each student drew maps of their home country and the neighbouring country. The applied research methods follow the basic models developed by K. Lynch. Over 390 features of the maps and the drawn symbols were taken into consideration in the course of a complex analysis of the mental maps. The analysis of a conducted survey and of 174 mental maps of Poland and Slovakia drawn by informants presented a lot of distortions and mistakes concerning the notion of tourist regions. The following regularities in spatial location were observed: 1. All the groups distorted both the borders of their home country and of their neighbouring country. 2. The knowledge of a home country was definitely more comprehensive than that of the neighbouring country. Polish students marked 40–50 towns on the map of Poland on average whereas only 10–15 on the map of Slovakia. Polish students located 6–10 tourist centres on average on the map of their home country and only 1–5 on the map of the neighbouring country. Slovak students marked 11–15 towns and 1–5 tourist centres on the map of Poland (see picture 15 and 16). The Poles, apart from the Tatras, drew also the Low Tatras. The Slovaks tried to place in Poland the Tatras, the Pieniny Mountains, the Swietokrzyskie Mountains and the Bieszczady Mountains. 3. The correct location of objects on a map caused a lot of problems. The most famous Slovak mountains, the Tatras, were placed correctly only by three Polish students. The other locations were incorrect (see picture 14). Bratislava, the capital, was also incorrectly placed. 18 students placed it in the middle of Slovakia and two in the east. 4. Completely false information was put on the mental maps as well. For example, one of Polish students marked Tatralandia ( thermal baths, waterpark) as a hill. Another one marked the Carpathians as a Slovak hill. Furthermore, the results of the survey make it possible to identify the differences between the groups of Polish and Slovak students: 1. From among Polish students as many as 97% visited Slovakia whereas only 56% Slovak students visited Poland. 2. A lot of students visited the neighbouring country for reasons other than the tourist ones. The Poles searched for entertainment and travelled across Slovakia to the south of Europe while the Slovaks arrived to do shopping, visit relatives or on business. 3. Most of the respondents attributed greater value to tourist resources in Slovakia than to those in Poland (both in the case of Polish and Slovak students). In conclusion, the authors notice that although mental maps are of a very individual character, they are also a part of intellectual capital of a society, which is important while developing a tourism product. According to L. Edvinsson and M.S. Malone (2001), intellectual capital is knowledge, experience, organizational technology and a professional skill which gives a competitive advantage on the market to the owner of this capital. 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z