Some 22,300 meetings and events of all kinds were held in Poland during 2012, according to the Poland Convention Bureau, which is targeting Irish travel agents to help them to significantly increase that number in 2014.
The first plus in choosing Poland is the wide choice of direct air routes, with Aer Lingus serving Krakow and Warsaw Chopin from Dublin, and Ryanair 11 cities countrywide from Dublin – Bydgoszcz, Gdansk, Katowice, Krakow, Lodz, Lublin, Posnan, Rzeszow, Szczecin, Warsaw Modlin, and Wroclaw – and two cities, Gdansk and Wroclaw, from Cork.
Poland’s main airport, the recently expanded and modernised Warsaw Chopin Airport, is less than 15 minutes from the Palace of Culture and Science, which can host a congress for up to 4,500 participants.
The second is the wide choice of accommodation and meetings venues, coupled with competitive pricing – for example, according to the 2013 Trivago Hotel Price Index, the average hotel room price in Krakow was €69, compared to the average price in other European capitals during the same period of €177.
The maximum number of theatre-style seats range from the top in Warsaw (14,000), Lodz (13,500), Gdansk (13,000), Poznan (12,000) and Katowice (11,500) down to 3,000 in Szczecin and Torun, and 2,500 in Olszytn.
For further information, see the ‘Polska: Come and Find Your Story’ supplement with the forthcoming April/May issue of Irish Travel Trade News, or visit www.poland-convention.pl .
