The research addressed the problem of determining conditions for tourism development in the mountain rural areas in Poland. The investigations were conducted with regard to administrative division of Poland; therefore a municipality was the smallest researched unit. The investigations focused on all municipalities in Poland constituting rural disadvantaged areas (determined as mountain ONW areas, a total of 50 municipalities in four provinces: dolnośląskie, malopolskie, podkarpackie and śląskie. Ratio analysis was conducted exclusively for rural areas. The data presented by matching features originated from various sources, mainly including data provided by The Main Statistical Office (for 2003) and the data of the general census (for 2002). Moreover the information was also obtained by means of surveys from the municipalities under analysis. The investigations were carried out by an original method, using a synthetic measure of tourist area development (SMUTRO). Potential applications of the original measure were presented on an example of Stronie Śląskie municipality where individual conditionings were subsequently presented. Four different groups of conditioning were assumed for the analysis of tourism development in the analysed area: infrastructural, economic, environmental and social. The groups were identified due to their role in the area of tourism consumption. The areas of partial conditionings ...
Modernization of agriculture, whose gravest problem is labour surplus and connected with it dispersed area structure, among others, relies on diminishing employment. Abandoning agriculture cannot imply migration from rural areas. Therefore, employment opportunities should be created for those who would abandon work in agriculture but would remain in the country. The main stipulation in the considerations of rural areas future is multifunctional development, whose rate and trends depend on many factors. Multifunctionality of rural areas resolves itself to proper, multidirectional utilization of rural potential determined by the above mentioned factors to create new, off-farm jobs. It should be emphasized that local specificity particularly socio-economic conditionings, play a crucial role in the process of multidirectional rural development.The main research problems discussed in the paper focused on the analysis of the rural areas environment effect on multifunctional development of these areas. Verification of the assumed research hypotheses resolved itself to answers to four questions:1. Are there any differences in the level of multifunctional development of communes and on what factors do they depend?2. Does the impact of multifunctional development factors depend on current level of multifunctionality?3. Do the rural dwellers have various preferences concerning multifunc-tional development and what do these preferences depend on?4. Do the opinions ...
