Spa Services In Hotel Facilities In The Lublin Province The Importance Of Hotel Facilities In The Provision Of Spa Services In The Lublin Province

Introduction. Apart from basic services, the modern hotel industry provides a number of additional services, including those having to do with wellness. This article attempts to provide a general description of spa services in selected hotel facilities in the Lublin Province in Poland.Material and methods. Data on the size of the accommodation base, its diversity, and its occupancy by tourists were obtained from the official statistical publications of the Polish Central Statistical Office (GUS). The paper presents the results of research on quantitative and structural transformations of mass accommodation facilities in the years 2000-2013. Particular attention was paid to spa hotels. Information on their profile and offer of balneological and wellness treatments was collected by means of a diagnostic survey in the form of an interview (primary source) and the exploration of websites (secondary source).Results and conclusions. According to the data provided by the Central Statistical Office, in 2013 there were a total of 285 mass accommodation facilities in the Lublin Province (accounting for 2.9% of all facilities in Poland), which constitutes 8.0% of the territory of Poland and is inhabited by 5.6% of the country's population. The facilities were able to receive approximately 18,700 guests (2.7% of the total accommodation capacity of Poland). Every fourth mass accommodation facility in the Lublin Province was a hotel. This type of accommodation base was represented particularly by facilities of lower categories (3, 2, and 1 star hotels), and it accounted for approximately 27% of the total accommodation capacity of the Lublin Province. Hotels and guest houses offering spa services in addition to accommodation constituted 19.5% of the total number of hotel facilities in the Lublin Province. They were particularly concentrated in Lublin and the towns of the Puławy (Puławski) District, such as Kazimierz Dolny and Nałęczów. Spa services provided in hotel facilities can become an important product intensifying the use of tourist space in the Lublin Province.