The objective of the article is to present the study of agritourism innovativeness. The analysis covers agritourism farms in Poland. It is also essential to identify the factors affecting the process of implementing innovation in agritourism. The objective of the article is to formulate conclusions on the impact of innovations on the development of agritourism and the competitiveness of agritourism farms that can be used by representatives of various agritourism-supporting institutions and organizations. A diagnostic survey–study was conducted in 2018, applying a survey questionnaire with a sample of 81 self-employed agritourism farm owners. Ward’s hierarchical clustering method was applied to group the counties in terms of innovativeness. For this purpose, the data provided by the central statistics authority (GUS) and the authors’ own survey study were used. The study confirms, e.g., the key significance of innovation for the development of agritourism in the counties analyzed. Additionally, in the article there is developed an original farm’s competitive positioning index and gaining a competitive advantage on the agritourism services market, with three farms in Germany, France and Poland, respectively as an example.

The aim of the article is to present the analysis of tourism competitiveness of the rural areas of the Eastern Poland microregion (Podlaskie, Warmińsko–mazurskie, Lubelskie, Świętokrzyskie, Podkarpackie provinces). To group the rural communes in terms of tourism competitiveness, a cluster analysis with Ward’s method was applied. To do so, the data provided by the Central Statistical Office (Warsaw) in Poland of 2019 were used. The analyses provided in the article confirm the dependence between the size of the areas of outstanding natural beauty and the region’s tourism competitiveness. The results can be applied by the representatives of various institutions and organizations supporting the development of tourism in those areas.

The article is aimed at presenting the survey respondents’ involvement in tourist activities, taking into account certain factors at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. The main objective may be divided into three direct aims, each of which consists of the determination of the factors that can influence the choice of tourist journeys: (1) organizational factors, (2) social-economic ones, and (3) sustainable development. The authors’ own research findings are used to verify the objective. The research was conducted in April and May 2020 with the use of a diagnostic survey method and a questionnaire. Five-hundred sixty-four respondents from Poland (Podlaskie, Masovian, and Lesser Poland Voivodeships) and 133 respondents from the US (New York State, New Jersey, and Illinois) took part in the research. It was divided into organizational, social-economic, and sustainable development related factors. The research confirmed, inter alia, a great impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the organization of tourist travels by the respondents in 2020. The issue presented in the article is a new one; it has not yet been a subject matter of research. That is the major reason the authors aimed to conduct it. What is a new methodological element in the article is the organization of some concepts concerning tourism and a presentation of the influence of COVID-19 on tourism. In the authors’ opinion, the issues presented are new and have a considerable impact on new trends in the development of tourism at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. The issue discussed is very broad, and the article does not exhaust it. The research findings are compared to the research findings reported by other authors, and standard deviations are calculated.

The article aims to present the essence of agritourism in the literature regarding the subject of its profitability during the COVID-19 pandemic. To verify the goal, data from our own research was applied. The research was conducted in 2019 and 2020 with the exploratory survey method and an interview questionnaire. Thirty-two service providers running agritourism activities in randomly selected rural communes of the Podlaskie province (communes of Mielnik, Suchowola, Giby, Płaska, and Hajnówka) participated in the study. The Ward cluster analysis method was used to group the counties of the Podlaskie Province in terms of spatial differentiation in the development of agritourism. For this purpose, data provided by the Central Statistical Authority in Poland reported for 2019 and the primary data (research by M. Roman) was applied. In the first part of the article, the authors describe and explain the basic concepts of rural tourism and agritourism based on the literature. The figures were also quoted, for example, the number of agritourism farms in Poland and other European countries. The last part of the study provides the results of our own research. The study demonstrates that in 2020 agritourism was profitable, as the owners of the farms recorded a profit. The research confirms the massive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on agritourism. During a pandemic, many people choose places with few people (e.g., rural areas). The research also considered the importance of innovation on agritourism farms and business profitability. The issues discussed in the study relate to current events—scientific studies examining the impact of COVID-19 on agritourism concern other countries; however, the authors were not able to find studies focusing on agritourism farms in Poland. A new element of methodology in this article was to organize the concepts of agritourism and to present the impact of coronavirus pandemic on the profitability of agritourism. It was also essential to present the classification of rural tourism. According to the authors of the study, the problems covered here are new and point to new trends in the development of agritourism during the pandemic.

The first European COVID-19 infection was recorded in February 2020, and Poland followed in mid-March. Restrictions were imposed on traveling between states and using public space. These movement restrictions forced a search for new, often innovative, forms of tourism. Google Earth virtual reality (VR), Google Street View, and the Chernobyl VR Project are just some of the selected opportunities to create virtual tours. Different activities using VR mean that people can experience the illusion of travelling in time and space, outside of their everyday surroundings, in a digitally constructed three-dimensional (3D) environment, for cognition or entertainment. Therefore, this study aimed to present virtual and space tourism as new traveling trends during various crises, such as health, economic, etc. A diagnostic survey with a developed questionnaire was conducted in June and July 2021 in Poland. A total of 564 fully answered responses were collected from randomly selected respondents. We found that around 82% of Polish people were aware of VR technology, and 70% believed that new technologies determine VR tourism development. VR presents the possibility of travelling to places that no longer exist in their original form, but have been reconstructed only in VR. Around 75% of the respondents agreed that VR tourism plays an essential role in tourism promotion in Poland and throughout the world. Moreover, VR and augmented tourism lets us visit fictitious and dangerous, politically restricted, and geographically as well as economically difficult destinations. For example, our results revealed that many people want to experience North Korea, the USA, Antarctica, Syria, etc. At the same time, people recommended the NASA space station as a visiting destination using VR and augmented reality. VR offers an alternative form of tourism during crises and pandemics such as COVID-19. We found over 26% of the respondents were satisfied with contemporary tourists’ cognitional needs during VR sightseeing. More than 87% of the respondents believed that VR tourism cannot substitute real-world tourism in the long run. However, VR tourism will be more beneficial for developing countries facing difficulties in economic aspects, and easier than attaining visas to enter developed countries. Furthermore, virtual sightseeing may also constitute an alternative for people who are disabled or sick, and who cannot undertake the effort of active tourism and explore tourist resources of the world on their own.

This article aims to give an overview of tourism at the time of the global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to assess the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on European countries, the Systemic Literature Review (SLR) as well as Our World in Data (2021) and EUROSTAT (2021) secondary data were used. In order to group countries with respect to changes taking place in tourism, Ward’s cluster analysis was applied. After verifying the available data, 31 European countries were eventually selected for the analysis. The application of Ward’s method led to four groups of countries being created that are most similar in terms of changes in the tourism sector between 2019 and 2020. The first cluster comprised eight countries with the highest average rate of restrictiveness. On the other hand, this group recorded the lowest rate of changes concerning arrivals by air transport, which was on average 70.32%. The second group comprised 13 countries. In this cluster, the average change in the number of overnight stays and arrivals at tourist resorts was the lowest in comparison with other clusters. The third cluster comprised four countries where the change in arrivals by air transport was the highest, with an average decrease of 81.76%. The fourth group comprised six countries. The average change in the occupancy of hotel rooms and similar overnight accommodation facilities, as well as arrivals at tourist resorts, was the highest in comparison with other clusters. In addition, the countries were characterized by a relatively high decrease in the number of arrivals by air transport, but a relatively low average rate of restrictiveness.