Poles among most welcomed tourists on several key markets

Why are Poles considered the most welcomed tourists? Which markets are top sellers in Poland? Are new markets trying to catch up with success? Is LOT Polish airlines considering to re-enter the charter market and why ? Is Covid really stopping Poles from traveling?

Past years have clearly indicated the importance of the Polish market for some key sunny destinations. Classic traditional Mediterranean countries like Turkey, Egypt, or Tunisia were followed by new players.

Why Poles are more and more important as clients? The key factor is the propensity to travel and the growing wealth of the entire society. Moreover, Poles have demonstrated a „lack of fear” and willingness to quickly return to travel after crises. The Arab Spring was a good example: Poles were one of the first nations to be back in the zone.

Malta as all-year-round destination

Malta is one of the examples of a partner, who truly understood the importance of the polish market. During past years the traffic from Poland was registering a stable growth. Poles were being positioned as a key incoming nation, just after traditional markets like the British, Italian and French. Due to its rising popularity, Malta has enjoined several direct regular connections from almost all key polish airports. Unfortunately, still, Polish home carrier LOT is not flying to La Valetta. It will change in the next future as LOT is now considering changing the strategy end re-enter vacation destinations on a larger scale. Press release about summer 2021 destinations was published right yesterday, and yes there is Malta on the list too. Hope it will become not only a seasonal flight but will turn into all year-round destination.

Montenegro – investing in Poland with good return

An another good example is Montenegro. This small compact country has a lot to offer, both for sunny and cultural tourism and not excluding winter offer. Just after enjoying direct flight connection from both LOT and low-cost carriers Montenegro became one of the rising destinations for polish tourism. Poland immediately became one of the top strategic markets for this beautiful country.

Hybrid companies entering market to boost offer to Turkey and Egypt

As a result of positive consideration of the market, we have experienced an additional positive factor. New hybrid companies have decided to enter the leisure market and boost outgoing tourism from Poland. Worth to mention was the attempt of Correndon Airlines which offered several connections from the polish airports to Turkey with the ambition to grow more in the future and become the trendsetter in this segment of the market.

Egyptian carrier Air Cairo has entered the country BSP too and it’s probably considering enlarging its presence in coming seasons. Rumors about Smartwings’ plans to fly to sunny destinations were being heard too.

LOT to re-enter charter market

Last summer LOT was forced to launch several holiday destinations mainly for operational, not business reasons. Seems that it was quite a successful move. Due to that fact Mr Milczarski, LOT CEO, has declared a new strategy to boost the LOT presence on the holiday destinations market. But the problem is the fleet, LOT is still suffering from a lack of medium-haul (bigger aircraft). This problem can be solved by new leasing contracts which are now available on the market. Most probably LOT will consider flying during winter to Egypt, the Persian Gulf region, and Maghreb countries, for the summer season Greece (Islands), Turkey and Malta might be new regular markets for the polish national carrier.

New potential destinations to compete for the market – Ras al Khaimah and Oman

Ras al Khaimah has also noticed the potential of the Polish market and established its representation in Warsaw.  Destination as such is  very promising but depends heavily on charter flights. Same situation for Oman which additionally has incentive travel potential that Ras Al Khaimah is trying to develop too these days. Worth mentioning also attention to the polish market from Air Arabia which is flying Shardza from Kiev and Prague. Dubai is one of the most popular winter destinations from Poland. Unfortunately still offered (from Warsaw) only by Emirates, cheaper competition might be more than welcome.

Even Covid cannot stop Poles from traveling

Recent study from one of the most relevant online travel packages resellers Fly.pl is showing what are Poles booking for autumn 2020. As far as October bookings, Turkey Egypt and Tunisia take 80% of the market. As far as European markets Spain was number one with 8% of the market share.

Another important online reseller Travelplanet.pl has indicated Turkey and Malta as the most promising destinations for winter. Turkey is offering the best prices now and quality/price ratio seems unbitten. Malta is slightly higher priced but has also nice advantage of being an EU member, which gives a possibility to have an instant telephone connection with EU prices. During covid this is an important selling point.

Waiting for long haul destinations to restart again

Long haul destinations have enjoyed a big boom in Poland too. Polish tourism to Thailand has reached more than 100 000 pax/year. Destinations like Cuba, Mexico, Dominicana and Sri Lanka were booming too. Newly launched direct flights have accelerated the competition between LOT and Gulf Carriers . As a consequence clients got the opportunity to travel relatively cheaply to Asia. LOT was also pre-announcing potential plans to launch new flights to Vietnam and India (second destination after Delhi). This is clearly showing the potential of the polish market, not only for Mediterranean markets. Long haul charter flights by LOT are not 100% confirmed for 2021, but we have good news too. Qatar Airways has recently announced the re-installation of Warsaw Doha flight, which will materialize on 16th December.