Slow tourism – idea, uwarunkowania i perspektywy rozwoju

Tourism is one of the luxury goods which satisfy higher-level needs. This means that the purchase of tourism goods and services is realized after satisfying the basic needs. However, the development of societies and the ability to satisfy increasingly sophisticated needs of consumers cause that tourism is becoming a widespread phenomenon and tourist attendance is increasing on a world scale. As a consequence, the number of tourist travels is increasing, the new form of tourism are sought, and people travel more and more. This growth is typical of developed countries populations. They have greater opportunities to travel and can get involved in more varied ways of spending time more and more often. Therefore, an important issue is to identify new phenomena which are characteristic of tourism, including slow tourism. The purpose of the paper is to characterize the slow tourism phenomenon. The authors also present its conditions and development perspectives. Particular attention is paid to trends of the social value, which has an impact on slow tourism development.