The paper concerns the quality of customer service in tourist services. The aim of this study is to present an assessment of the quality of customer service in selected travel agencies in Krakow. The spatial extent of research involved the Old Town with adjacent quarters and the Kazimierz district in Krakow. To achive the purpose of the work, a stocktaking of travel agencies and an assessment of the quality of customer service using a mystery shopping method were carried out from March to May 2019. The quality of customer service in Krakow’s travel agencies is varied. It is at an average but increasingly unsatisfactory level. Network travel agencies have a higher standard of customer service than non-network ones. The top-rated areas of customer service were staff appearance as well as their behaviour and personal culture during the conversation with a client. The lowest-rated areas were staff behaviour and personal culture during the customer enterance to the office as well as at the end of the conversation and while saying goodbye to the client. Only 16,0% of studied travel agencies showed maximum interest and respect to the customer. The research results presented in this paper can be used in the functioning of travel agencies in Poland to improve the quality of services in these types of enterprises and meet the requirements of quality management.

The subject of this study is the process of women’s professional activation, which takes place as a result of undertaking agritourism activities on farms in rural areas of the Polish Carpathians. The main purpose of the article was to determine the motives of women to undertake professional activity in rural tourism. The study included a sample of 70 agritourism farms run or co-run by women in Carpathian rural tourist communes in the Lesser Poland (Małopolska) Voivodeship. Three groups of motives, which guided women while choosing their path of professional activation in agritourism, were distinguished. The basis for undertaking agritourism activities are expected economic benefits and factors arising from the spatial environment of farms such as local hospitality traditions, the level of tourism development, the presence of attractive values for leisure, the traditional village life, and the “internal” factors associated with household and agricultural resources. Equally  mportant are the “individualistic” motifs of psychological and social nature – the need to contact other people or be “needed” in the family. The female professional activation in agritourism has not only an economic but also a social and cultural dimension.

The passenger rail transport in Poland lets us travel between regions faster every year. But in the first years of the twenty-first century the only way to travel from, for example, the Tatra Mountains to the Baltic coast, was travelling by night train. They were run on long, cross-city routes. Despite a long time of journey, they were still  popular, especially in tourism. As a result of investments in Polish railways, the number of fast daily trains has significantly increased, taking some potential passengers of the night trains. On the other hand, there are still some regions located on the peripheries, which demand night trains to have long-distance connections with other Polish regions. The future of those trains in Poland is not clear. Recently a trend of internationalization of night trains has been observed. For example, in the summer of 2020 new night trains connecting Czechia and Polish Baltic resorts are planned to be run. The topic of the future of night trains in Poland, compared to the past, should be well deliberated and planned to maintain high efficiency of rail transport. The aim of this paper is to discuss the past and the potential future of night trains in Poland. Furthermore an author`s formula estimating the demand in trains is presented in order to define the efficiency of night trains compared to the day trains.

The article discusses the issue of economic relations between an accommodation facility providing safari tourism services and the local Samburu tribal community in northern Kenya. The study illustrates a unique case of safari tourist lodge functioning in a close relation to the traditional shepherd community in the conditions of its spatially isolated location. The local community benefits economically from permanent and occasional work for the lodge, sale of craft and agricultural products, as well as benefits, economically and socially, from the entrepreneur’s charity actions and the visitors’ generosity and donations. The tourist lodge operator is compelled to conduct permanent (almost every-day) trainings of employees from the local Samburu community to sustain the quality of services provided to its guests (‘high-end’ tourists). He also maintains close relations with the local tribal elders, among others by consulting his own intentions regarding the intensification of tourism development and his plans for establishing a local nature protection area in the form of ‘conservancy’. The development of the safari facility depends strongly on local natural conditions, as well as the acceptance of its activities by members of the tribal elders, that is strictly conditioned by the entity’s ability to create economic values (benefits) for the local community.

Abstract: The paper tackles problems associated with the attitudes of local communities and tourists towards landscape parks. The study is based on the results of questionnaire surveys conducted in all landscape parks located in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship among local residents (N=2000) and tourists (N=1077). The surveys demonstrated great support for landscape parks, both among local residents and tourists. The respondents noticed their positive effect on the quality of life and the development of tourism. Sadly, the knowledge on such protected areas was rather poor. Few tourists visited a specific area because of it being protected as a landscape park, as most them were not aware of this fact at all. Respondents from both groups hardly recognised landscape parks as institutions and had never heard of the activities undertaken by the Complex of Landscape Parks of the Lesser Poland Voivodeship. The study subjects usually declared their willingness to improve their knowledge by getting involved in educational events organised by the Complex and one in four of them declared their readiness to join in activities for the benefit of the landscape parks studied. The domination of approving attitudes, combined with the declared interest in educational projects and the relatively high willingness to act for the benefit of the parks, creates a very favourable climate for the functioning of the Complex as an institution. These conditions should foster the process of building cooperation with local residents, developing initiatives integrating local residents and tourists around activities undertaken for the benefit of the parks, as well as undertaking actions strengthening the brand of the Complex of Landscape Parks of the Lesser Poland Voivodeship as an active entity, having a real impact upon the protection, promotion, and sustainable development of areas covered by its activities.