Revenues, especially per capita can really show the imbalanced status of tourism in many CEE countries. Especially, in the case of the Ukraine, data show that large number of visitors does not necessarily come together with lot of spending. This data ensure that most of the visitors to the Ukraine are not ‘real’ visitors, more like cross-border traders or people visiting friends and relatives. The low average figures are not good signs for sustainable tourism. Especially, that government officials, and politicians in all CEE countries are mainly concerned about visitiation numbers, and do not take into consideration almost any other data or indicator of tourism. The state's financial participation in the development of this industry had been very low in the Carpathian countries as it is, for instance, in the Czech Republic or in Hungary. More extensive financial assistance in the country has been provided for the State Program of Support for Tourism, activities of the Czech Tourism Authority (especially expansion of the network of offices abroad, promotion in foreign countries, marketing, creation of information systems, etc.), and activities aimed at promoting the development of tourism in regions. In Hungary, the state was running a special scheme from which accommodation establishments and locations, operators with natural healing/thermal water could develop and extend their services. This situation has certainly changed in those countries that joined the EU since tourism has instantly become one of the priority areas for development. Several billions of Euros have alraedy been spent on tourism development directly (e.g. attraction developments) and indirectly (infrastructure developments). Several CEE countries were built on their natural assets in tourism communication: Poland uses ’The Natural Choice’ slogan; in the logo of Romania the Carpathians are resembled and in Hungary, 2007 was the ‘Year of Green Tourism’, and from Poland (through Austria) to Romania they refer to themselves as ‘The country in the Centre/Heart of Europe’. It would be highly important to analyze the Intra-Carpathian tourism flow, but due to the lack of the entity of Carpathians, there are no relevant data available. 3.2.2 Tourism Supply It can be seen that the Carpathians as tourism entity or unit does not really exist (the difference is really huge comparing it to the communication, the image of the Alps where skiing for example is a unifying product and image). Mountain tourism is important in all the countries; still, the Carpathian Mountains are not highlighted on the websites of several national tourist offices (eg. Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland). The Carpathians play a crucial role in the positioning of Romania, while there are very structured and sound information labelled with Carpathian Mountains in Slovakia. In Serbia, and the Ukraine, the Carpathians are among the must see destinations, though the low level interpretation of the online information cause difficulties. Regarding the tourism product the followings can be summarized (detailed inventory can be found in Appendix 3):
Consultation Draft – Carpathian Tourism Strategy
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