Failures in Building Partnership for Success in the Competitive Market: The Case of Polish Ski Resorts

The topic of local stakeholders’ collaboration for success on the tourism market is a popular one, however research is usually devoted to well established Western economies. Created in this way, rules of cooperation are not fully suitable for new democracies in Central and Eastern European countries. Western standards of cooperation can not be achieved in Polish winter sports destinations, which is mirrored in the analyzed example of the Polish biggest ski resort – Szczyrk. Mutual mistrust and hostile attitude are typical for stakeholders in this example. The very low competitiveness level of the product is the most visible effect. Additionally, ski product development in Poland is highly criticized from the environmental point of view, which results in another difficult to manage, severe conflict sourced in different interpretations of the idea of sustainable tourism development.