Central and Eastern Europe and EU Accession 2004: Views of the Impact on Tourism

Abstract

The European Union (EU) was joined by several new members in 2004. Eight of these were Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries that had, at one time, had communist governments and centralised economies. This paper describes a study of tourist board officials' views on the tourism outcomes of the accession and the factors influencing those outcomes. The officials represented the eight CEE countries, and, through individual interviews, their opinions were sought in order to obtain an ‘informed’ view of post-2004. Predictions for tourism had been optimistic, and these interviewees confirmed that the outcomes had been generally favourable. In particular, they considered that there had been an increased tourism inflow (especially from the United Kingdom) and a shift in the tourism profile towards tourists with wider interests and whose destinations within the countries were more spatially dispersed. Although publicity just before, and at the time of, accession had contributed to this, the most significant influence was believed to have been participation in the EU internal air transport market. The accession of 2004 was, in many respects, less a step-change in economies and in tourism patterns than the culmination of adjustment processes that had been ongoing since the late 1980s. Nonetheless, it was marked by an uplift, the long-term effects of which have yet to be determined.