Historia i stan obecny hotelarstwa w regionie łódzkim

Abstract

Despite the mediaeval origins of numerous towns and villages of Łódź region, it is difficult to discuss a particular development of services in accommodation and catering. Like in other Poland’s regions, the beginnings of hotel industry in Łódź environs should be associated with the development of inns and taverns. In the Middle Ages and in later periods their location was related to more significant places such as Rawa Mazowiecka, Piotrków Trybunalski, Wolbórz, Inowłódz and Łowicz, or more important trade routes crossing the region. In times of the Gentry Republic of Poland, Piotrków Trybunalski took the lead as regards the number of inns and taverns, initially due to gatherings and regional gentry diets, then due to Crown tribunals, which took place in this town. Together with the development of postal communication in the 19th century postal inns came into beings also in central Poland. Inns founded in Łęczyca Rokiciny (built in 1848) (fig. 2 and 3) or Łowicz are the best examples. The first 19th-century establishments, which indulgently might be called hotels, were founded outside Łódź among others in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Łowicz and Sieradz. The second half of the 19th and the beginnings of the 20th centuries witnessed the development of holiday settlement outside Łódź and bigger towns of the region. In woody areas with healthful properties (usually dry pine forests) settlements, often referring to a well-known idea of so-called ‘towns-gardens’ were mushrooming. They were Głowno, Grotniki, Sokolniki, Tuszyn-Las, Gomunice, Teofilów and Inowłódz and others. The period of World War II was the time of stagnation and even decline in the development of tourist accommodation whose part was either destroyed or changed its functions. Years after the war witnessed the increase in social tourism whose main moderators in those times were most often enterprises in Łódź. Numerous leisure centres with plenty of accommodation were founded. In the first half of the seventies, initial attempts were made at adapting historic buildings for hotel accommodation. In the nineties of the 20th and the beginnings of the 21st centuries mainly private investors showed an increased interest in adapting historic buildings to hotels. In that period numerous attempts were made to adjust tourist accommodation to standards binding upon European hotel industry. The beginnings of the 21st century brought about a distinctive revival of investments in areas considered as tourist destinations (e.g. Spała, Bronisławów). In 2004, which is the basis for carried research, in Łódź region 231 different establishments with 15 210 accommodation places were registered. In the generic structure of accommodation facilities localized within the boundaries of Łódź region, establishments classified as ‘others’ i.e. these ones which do not appear in a detailed generic classification provided in the Act of tourist services from 1997, outnumbered other types. The current shift of the centroid of hotel distribution to the southeast of Łódź results from the foundation of many new hotels (Dłutów, Nowa Gdynia near Zgierz, Spała on Sulejów artificial lake) or thorough alteration of the existing accommodation (Spała, Polichno) and adjusting it to requirements for the hotels in eastern and southern part of the region. Hotels in the region have been undergoing much more dynamic changes than the ones located in Łódź. Only in 2005 (data from the end of Sept.) in Łódź region 14 new hotels were built (including the only in the region 4-star hotel Mościcki in Spała). In the same time none of Łodź hotels was classified under this category.