Spatial Agglomeration and Interrelation between KIS and Tourism : The Case of Poland

The aim of this research is twofold: (1) to identify clusters of tourism and of Knowledge Intensive Services (KIS) providers as inter-regional agglomerations, including the scope and strength of spillovers between Polish districts, and (2) to investigate the spatial relations between regional tourist development and KIS providers' localization. To measure inter-regional agglomeration phenomena, we apply spatial statistics of autocorrelation (local Moran's Ii statistic): Local Indicators of Spatial Association (LISA). We also use contingency tables to study the relationship between tourism development and the localization of KIS providers in Polish districts. We use data collected by the Polish Central Statistical Office for 2009 and 2015 in 380 Polish districts (firms registered in sections I and J of NACE classification and the number of tourists staying overnight). We observe statistically significant spillover effects in tourism supply in both urbanization- and localization-type clusters as well as the convergence processes of agglomeration in urbanized regions in relation to tourism and KIS clusters. Moreover, we find that mature tourism destinations are characterized by both low and high intensity of KIS, depending on the type of clusters (urbanized or localized). The highest percentage of districts with high growth in tourist development refers to the medium and high share of KIS providers. The results indicate a positive correlation between the share of KIS providers in districts' economies and dynamic growing tourism destinations. They also emphasize the need for research on the role of KIS (including ICTs) at different stages of tourism development and enhancing regional innovativeness