• Energy Research

The paper analyses the sustainable development of tourism in selected cities located in Turkey and in Poland. The starting point for the conducted research was the adoption of indicators used to assess the sustainable development of tourism in the cities of Amasya (Turkey) and Zakopane (Poland). Ultimately, the authors used slightly modified indicators developed by the Voluntary Initiative for Sustainability in Tourism (VISIT). The studies demonstrated that in Amasya the development of tourism is quite stable and revealed quite a lot of deficiencies in Zakopane. Sustainable development was assessed as poor in terms of environmental obligations, in particular waste water management solutions and municipal waste management as well as in terms of water consumption. The research revealed that some of the indicators were not recorded in central statistical offices, which hindered the assessment considerably. This refers mainly to indicators related to social and cultural considerations. In general, the results are rather surprising, as the analysis revealed significant differences in the development of technological infrastructure and land use intensity. Unfortunately, in these aspects, Zakopane seems to have lost the competition.

Gastronomy tourism is defined as a type of tourism that deals with the relationship between food and beverages and culture in the context of the local culinary culture. Local dishes, recipes, and culinary culture, which express the lifestyle of cities, are an important part of tourists’ choice of destinations. According to many studies undertaken in recent years, tourists have seen an increase in the number of trips conducted to taste a cultural dish and to learn cooking techniques and cooking skills. In this study, the Trabzon (Turkey) and Podhale (Poland) regions were selected as a study area. These regions are characterised by unique, very interesting culture and art and, especially, folklore. The cuisines from Podhale and from the Trabzon region are equally attractive. The study was conducted on 151 people in Trabzon and 102 respondents in the Podhale region. The study revealed that only 15 out of 253 respondents had not heard about regional and traditional products. The authors analyzed whether people from different age groups had specific habits concerning the place of purchasing regional products in the analysed regions of Poland and Turkey. Regarding the question of whether the motivation to buy regional products was the same in households with a larger and smaller number of residents, it was found that only one correlation proved to be statistically significant: the correlation between household size and buying regional products because of their price.