MICE tourism in Lodz Metropolitan Area
by Tomasz Napierala, University of LodzDeterminants of city’s MICE tourism product
The main purpose of this note is to describe main characteristics of product offered by Lodz Metropolitan Area to the MICE tourists. Zmyslony and Leszczynski (2014) defined city’s business tourism product as all goods and services purchased by business tourists. Goods and services mainly targeted for tourists must be underlined. Attractiveness of discussed product is influenced by the following determinants: access to the international transportation network, quality and effectiveness of internal transport network, tourist information, accommodation and F&B facilities, events’ calendar (meetings, conferences and exhibitions), social, cultural, entertainment and recreational services, shopping facilities (Zmyslony & Leszczynski, 2014).
Moreover, Buhalis (2000) argued that following determinants of city’s MICE tourism product are crucial: ability of enterprises and institutions located in particular city to organize events, transport connections with the world city network, accessibility and competitiveness of business services offered in a city. As Crouch (2010) discussed, determinants of city’s MICE tourism product can be divided into two groups: core resources and attractors and supporting factors and resources. Core resources and attractors include: special events, physiography and climate, culture and history, mix of activities, entertainment, superstructure and market ties. While supporting factors and resources contain: infrastructure, accessibility, facilitating resources, hospitality, enterprise and political will (Crouch, 2010). Global competitiveness of city’s MICE tourism product is affected by the exchange rate of local currency and purchasing power parity (Dwyer, 2011). Nowacki and Zmyslony (2011) indicated following determinants of city’s tourist attractiveness: affective factors, tourist infrastructure, entertainment and F&B facilities, tourist attractions, functional factors and hospitality.
Therefore, to the detailed description of Lodz MICE tourism product, following characteristics were employed:
- week number of international airline connections,
- basic characteristic of local convention bureau,
- number of hotels, hotel rooms, hotel guests and hotel occupancy rate (with particular emphasis on luxury hotels),
- number of international trade fairs and exhibitions,
- events’ calendar,
- quantity and quality of congresses and conferences facilities,
- audience of cinemas, museums, theaters and music institutions,
- number of foreign direct investments,
- number and types of grocery stores.
Lodz Metropolitan Area. General information
To better understand the conditions of Lodz Metropolitan Area, in this note three similar Polish metropolitan areas (of Lodz, Poznan and Wroclaw), with similar population, were compared. Table 1 depicts general characteristics of mentioned metropolitan areas and their core cities.
Table 1. General characteristics of metropolitan areas of Lodz, Poznan and Wroclaw in 2013
Characteristic | Lodz MA | Lodz city | Poznan MA | Poznan city | Wroclaw MA | Wroclaw city |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Population | 385035 | 711332 | 618754 | 548028 | 574545 | 632067 |
GDP per capita (2011) | 32487 | 48669 | 46298 | 75877 | 36777 | 60425 |
Registered unemployment rate | 16.6 | 12.3 | 7.2 | 4.2 | 12.9 | 5.5 |
The percentage of individuals with university degrees (2011) | 15.1 | 22.6 | 17.8 | 30.4 | 14.1 | 30.0 |
International airline connections
It must be underlined that access to the global city network significantly influences on city’s MICE tourism product (Buhalis, 2000). Thus, the effectiveness of city’s international airports is widely discussed.
Table 2. Effectiveness of international airports in Lodz, Poznan and Wroclaw in 2014
Characteristic | Lodz airport | Poznan airport | Wroclaw airport |
---|---|---|---|
Number of international flights per week | 17 | 91 | 124 |
Number of domestic flights per week | 0 | 22 | 62 |
Local convention bureau
As Tomczyk (2013) argued, the effectiveness of operating of convention bureaus is affected by their organizational and legal form. Lodz Convention Bureau is a part of the structure of The City of Lodz Office. On the other hand, Wroclaw and Poznan institutions are formally independent NGOs. However, local authorities are main founders of convention bureaus in mentioned cities.
Local hotel industry
Table 3 depicts general characteristics of hotel industry in metropolitan areas and their core cities of Lodz, Poznan and Wroclaw. As significant element of city’s MICE tourism product, luxury hotels are emphasized. More detail information about accommodation facilities in Lodz Metropolitan Area you can find in conference paper by Napierala and Lesniewska (2014).
Table 3. Hotel industry in metropolitan areas of Lodz, Poznan and Wroclaw in 2013
Characteristic | Lodz MA | Lodz city | Poznan MA | Poznan city | Wroclaw MA | Wroclaw city |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Number of hotels | 21 | 31 | 46 | 50 | 26 | 43 |
Number of luxury hotels | 0 | 5 | 3 | 10 | 3 | 15 |
Number of hotel rooms | 644 | 2857 | 1484 | 3219 | 730 | 3784 |
Number of rented hotel rooms per year | 73325 | 367263 | 177593 | 522224 | 80715 | 752650 |
Average annual occupancy rate of hotels | 31.2 | 35.2 | 32.8 | 44.4 | 30.3 | 54.5 |
Number of tourists accommodated in hotels per year | 83241 | 349503 | 157444 | 438015 | 89095 | 659166 |
International trade fairs and exhibitions
In the Table 4, data collected by Polish Convention Bureau, on events organized in particular Polish metropolises, is shown. Information contains all events reported by cities’ convention bureaus.
Table 4. Events in Lodz, Poznan and Wroclaw in 2013
Characteristic | Lodz city | Poznan city | Wroclaw city |
---|---|---|---|
Number of congresses and conferences per year | 154 | 663 | 524 |
Number of international trade fairs and exhibitions | 4 | 64 | 91 |
Congresses and conferences facilities
Using data of Lodz Convention Bureau and information presented on websites of congresses and conferences establishments, comprehensive characteristic of congresses and conferences facilities in Lodz Metropolitan Area was feasible. It is worth to notice that congresses and conferences facilities are offered by different type of enterprises, depicted below.
Table 5. Typology of congresses and conferences enterprises in Lodz Metropolitan Area.
Type of enterprise | Lodz MA | Lodz city | Lodz MA | Lodz city |
---|---|---|---|---|
Number of enterprises | Maximum number of seats | |||
1* hotels | 2 | 1 | 320 | 24 |
2* hotels | 8 | 7 | 1605 | 979 |
3* hotels | 9 | 12 | 1973 | 2965 |
4* hotels | 1 | 6 | 535 | 4955 |
Not-hotels | 0 | 17 | 0 | 24418 |
Top-10 congresses and conferences facilities in Lodz Metropolitan Area are listed in the Table 6. It must be underlined that most of them are located in the core city – Lodz.
Table 6. Top-10 congresses and conferences enterprises in Lodz Metropolitan Area
Name | City | Type | Maximum number of seats |
---|---|---|---|
Atlas Arena | Lodz | Not-hotel | 14026 |
Art_Inkubator | Lodz | Not-hotel | 2569 |
Double Tree by Hilton Lodz | Lodz | 4* hotel | 2336 |
Entertainment Center MPD Silver Screen | Lodz | Not-hotel | 1748 |
Andel's Hotel Lodz | Lodz | 4* hotel | 1479 |
Rubin | Lodz | Not-hotel | 860 |
Conference and Equestrian Center Campoverde | Lodz | Not-hotel | 785 |
Lodz Philhramonic | Lodz | Not-hotel | 750 |
Dom Towarzystwa Kredytowego | Lodz | Not-hotel | 739 |
Hotel Fabryka Welny | Pabianice | 4* hotel | 535 |
In the Table 7, general characteristics of congresses and conferences facilities in Lodz Metropolitan Area are included.
Table 7. Congresses and conferences facilities in Lodz Metropolitan Area.
Characteristic | Lodz MA | Lodz city |
---|---|---|
Number of seats in conference halls and rooms | 4433 | 33341 |
Number of seats in conference halls and rooms offered by luxury hotels | 535 | 4955 |
Average number of seats in conference halls and rooms offered by one establishment | 221.7 | 775.4 |
Average number of seats in conference halls and rooms offered by one establishment, excluding Atlas Arena | 221.7 | 449.2 |
Average number of seats in conference halls and rooms offered by one luxury hotel | 535.0 | 825.8 |
Audience of cinemas, museums, theaters and music institutions
To describe cultural and entertainment facilities, as significant parts of city’s MICE tourism product (Zmyslony & Leszczynski, 2014), both number of institutions like cinemas, museums, theaters and philharmonics and audience were presented in the Table 8. Lodz Metropolitan Area was compared to two similar metropolitan areas of Poznan and Wroclaw.
Table 8. Cultural institutions and their audience in metropolitan areas of Lodz, Poznan and Wroclaw in 2013
Characteristic | Lodz MA | Lodz city | Poznan MA | Poznan city | Wroclaw MA | Wroclaw city |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Number of cinemas | 2 | 6 | 4 | 10 | 4 | 7 |
Cinemas audience | 22027 | 1503006 | 73213 | 2166051 | 23926 | 2090228 |
Number of museums | 3 | 19 | 16 | 18 | 3 | 24 |
Museums visitors | 19074 | 488123 | 204885 | 291828 | 12593 | 1483062 |
Number of theaters | 0 | 9 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 7 |
Theaters audience | 0 | 353663 | 0 | 291743 | 0 | 286772 |
Number of phliharmonics | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Philharmonics audience | 0 | 24450 | 0 | 39330 | 0 | 55402 |
Foreign direct investments
Table 9 depicts number of foreign direct investments in Lodz, Wroclaw and Poznan and in metropolitan areas of mentioned cities.
Table 9. Foreign direct investments in metropolitan areas of Lodz, Poznan and Wroclaw in 2013
Characteristic | Lodz MA | Lodz city | Poznan MA | Poznan city | Wroclaw MA | Wroclaw city |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Number of foreign direct investments | 13 | 37 | 35 | 50 | 26 | 64 |
Shopping facilities
Data on shopping facilities in discussed metropolitan areas is shown in Table 10.
Table 10. Shopping facilities in metropolitan areas of Lodz, Poznan and Wroclaw in 2013
Characteristic | Lodz MA | Lodz city | Poznan MA | Poznan city | Wroclaw MA | Wroclaw city |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Number of hypermarkets | 5 | 23 | 3 | 18 | 5 | 17 |
Number of supermarkets | 60 | 93 | 130 | 114 | 96 | 100 |
Number of department stores | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
Number of trade stores | 0 | 6 | 1 | 7 | 3 | 5 |
Events’ calendar
The number of events planned in Lodz and its metropolitan area for 2015 is shown below.
Table 11. Calendar of events in 2015 in Lodz Metropolitan Area.
Characteristic | All events | In Lodz city | In Lodz MA |
---|---|---|---|
January | 1 | 0 | 1 |
February | 2 | 1 | 1 |
March | 7 | 5 | 2 |
April | 7 | 7 | 0 |
May | 21 | 19 | 2 |
June | 13 | 10 | 4 |
July | 6 | 5 | 2 |
August | 5 | 4 | 2 |
September | 12 | 11 | 3 |
October | 13 | 13 | 0 |
November | 8 | 8 | 0 |
December | 3 | 3 | 0 |
Not specified | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Literature
- Buhalis D., 2000, Marketing the competitive destination of the future, Tourism Management, 21, 97–116.
- Crouch G.I., 2010, Destination competitiveness: An analysis of determinant attributes, Journal of Travel Research 20(10), 1–19.
- Dwyer L., Mistilis N., Forsyth P. & Rao P., 2001, International price competitiveness of Australia’s MICE industry, International Journal of Tourism Research, 3(2001), 123–139.
- Napierala T. & Lesniewska K., 2014, Location as a determinant of accommodation prices: Managerial approach, In: Conference proceedings, Eds. M. Kozak, N. Kozak, 7th World Conference for Graduate Research in Tourism, Hospitality and Leisure, Istanbul, 687–692.
- Nowacki M. & Zmyslony P., 2011, The measurement of city image: Urban tourism market segmentation, Current Issues of Tourism Research, 1(2011), 10–18.
- Tomczyk N., 2013, Zarzadzanie turystyka biznesowa na przykladzie wybranych convention bureaux w Polsce, Praca magisterska napisana w Instytucie Geografii Miast i Turyzmu, Lodz.
- Zmyslony P. & Leszczynski G., 2014, Identyfikacja sieci powiazan w miejskiej turystyce biznesowej, Studia Oeconomica Posnaniensia, 3(264), 103–120.