Summary:

The subject of research were tourist infrastructure facilities in mountain rural areas in Poland. The area covered by the investigations was composed of a total of 50 communes located in four provinces (dolnośląskie, śląskie, malopolskie and podkarpackie). The state of the analysed area management for tourism was assessed on the basis of 29 diagnostic features using the multicriterial analysis. The data characterizing individual phenomena were collected during two periods, i.e. in 2005 and 2007. They originated from various sources including data base of regional branches of the Central Statistical Office (GUS) and from survey studies conducted in the above mentioned years in communal offices, supplemented by the data from websites of the studied communes. The analysis was conducted to assess the state of tourist infrastructure facilities in a selected area, as well as the strength and directions of changes in this respect. Conducted analysis revealed a considerable diversification of communes in respect of tourist infrastructure facilities. In 2007 the best situation was registered in Krynica-Zdrój, whereas the Dobra commune was the most poorly managed in consideration of the above mentioned facilities. Also changes occurring on the level of infrastructural management may be considered significant, particularly because of communes where the situation of tourist infrastructure worsened. The most favourable changes were noticed in the Bukowina Tatrzańska commune. Ochotnica Dolna commune proved the one where no changes were visible. On the other hand, changes reflecting a degradation of the tourist infrastructure facilities were observed to the greatest extent in the Krynica-Zdrój commune. Comparison of the obtained results with the data characterizing the intensity of tourist traffic in the analyzed area suggests that there are other, more important factors (conditionings) affecting it than the tourist infrastructure alone.