Tourism attractiveness of the landscape of Mazovia in Poland ‒ an untapped potential for bicycle tourism development

Abstract

The region of Mazovia in Poland helps meet the growing demand for recreational areas, which is related to the existence of large urban centres in the region and the ever-increasing trend towards an active lifestyle. This paper demonstrates the potential of Mazovia in terms of bicycle tourism, discusses the state of the existing bicycle infrastructure and outlines prospects for its development. For that purpose the authors: 1) summarised the spatial distribution of natural values important for cycling and the condition of cycling infrastructure; 2) examined the relation between the values of the Mazovia region and their use for cycling; 3) checked the state of the bicycle routes network in the Mazowieckie voivodeship in relation to other voivodeships. This study shows that Mazovia has a considerable potential for cycling tourism and recreation on both a regional and local scale for short-term and short-distance trips. On a supra-regional scale, the Mazovia area offers excellent conditions for establishing transit routes between regions of the highest tourist attractiveness in Poland. However, the above-mentioned potential is at present partially untapped, the likely reasons for which have been indicated in this paper.