Szlak Zabytków Techniki Województwa Śląskiego jako czynnik aktywizacji turystycznej w aglomeracji Górnego Śląska

Among the many interesting types of tourism, there can also be found ones which are not only a form of physical or intellectual activity, but also a kind of travel to the past. The type of tourism that combines the mentioned features is heritage tourism, particularly its subtype called post-industrial tourism. The objective of this article is to describe the Industrial Monuments Route of the Silesian Province and to compare tourist traffic in selected post-industrial objects to the total rate of tourist traffi c in industrialized regions of the Silesian Province. Two objects were chosen for the case study; although they have comparable historical attractiveness as monuments of post-industrial tourism, they present two different ways of tourist use and they attract different numbers of visitors. Analyses of the Industrial Monuments Route of the Silesian Province and the mentioned cases of tourist attractions allow for the conclusion that each object differs in its importance, but they all compose an important set of tourist attractions of the region. Even though the Gliwice Radio Station attracts fi ve times less visitors than the Historic Coal Mine GUIDO, the tourist value of both of these objects increases the total offer of the region to a similar extent. The synergy of objects located along the route can also be seen in the general tendency of the number of tourists as well as overnight stays in the Silesian Province.