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Interview: Mr. Alex Kloszewski, Chairman, Warsaw Destination Alliance

By Amarendra Bhushan for CEOWORLD Magazine Updated:September 15, 2009

What would you tell the business people coming to Poland to find a location, where they can invest or start up their companies? Why should they choose Warsaw?

First of all, I guess, you have to look at the whole country. Especially when you consider the last five, six years and the accession of the new countries to the EU. Polish economy, as well as its population, is larger than the economy or population of the other eleven countries which entered the EU. We have a 300 billion euro economy, we have a population of almost 40 million people.

Why should people invest in Warsaw?

When you look at the country and how it does function, you can see that Poland is still a very centralized country. It is rather inevitable to have some business connections with the capital city – Warsaw, even if you settle your company in e.g. Wroclaw, which is in the other corner of the country. Most large Polish companies have their headquarters or their offices – it can even be a regional office – situated in Warsaw. We also keep in our mind the fact that the government, parliament and all the ministries are located in Warsaw. It is a lot simpler to get some things done, especially for big corporations.

Personally I like the idea of promoting Poland as a brand, as a whole product… What actually are the main objectives of Warsaw Destination Alliance?

The idea started eight years ago. It was the time, when we felt that the tourism and industry needed a lot of help. Especially, because Poland, including Warsaw, was not a brand yet. There was that rather sad and dark stereotype of the whole region. If we wanted to develop our industry, we knew that first of all we have to improve the image of Warsaw. Secondly: invest in the infrastructure of tourism. Another thing was to accent our advantages and curiosities. We were the first ones ever who have hired CNN and BBC to do the promotion of our city. That was the first time when any town or any city in Poland went out and bought an advertisement in mass media.

This campaign was very beautiful and very quickly put us on the European map. It combined the fusion between the communistic buildings, the 17-18th citadels and the new modern hotels and offices into one, with many colors and happy people and beautiful cars. It was something that nobody would have thought about 10 years ago. The worldwide image of Poland was grey, ugly. People thought that there were many poor and drunk people on the streets in Warsaw, there were no lights at night, very few cars. We created that foundation basically to make sure we have influence on the image. We wanted to change the image of Warsaw and promote it in the market abroad. We also tried to influence and lobby the government to do the right things.

In which direction you want to promote Warsaw? In what kind of initiatives are you trying to participate?

We can not go aggressively against big international or even pan-european businesses. We don’t have facilities, for instance, for 10 thousands doctors to arrive from whole Europe into one building. So we can not compete with Berlin, Frankfurt, London, Paris, Prague, Budapest, Milan or Rome.

What we try to do is based on what we have. Obviously for the past 7 years I’ve been lobbying the government to build a conference center, one that I can accommodate for 15 -18 thousand people. The work is in progress. We have actually got some pools next to the stadium and on the right side of the river – Prague. There is a big conference center planned. But it is going to be opened in 2016 so for the EURO 2012 it is actually to late. Eventually we want to be the meeting place. If you look at all of our hotels, about 22-25% of occupied rooms are conference rooms. For two-night or two-day conference we have enough places to entertain the people: restaurants, clubs with excellent music beautiful shops.

What are your plans for the upcoming Euro 2012?

Two years ago, when we won, when Poland and Ukraine were chosen to organize Euro 2012, I wrote a big memorandum to the government. Warsaw Destination Alliance declared to be a support for all institutions that need support during preparation for the championship, especially hotels around the organizing cities. We had a conference and a press conference, we went to UEFA two times.

We want to make sure that this championship is very well prepared. However, even more important to me is that Warsaw and other cities will do a great job and show Warsaw and whole country as a very friendly place, one that can organize big events, is able to attract foreign tourists and investors. The quality of the event and the quality of the tourism business is a crucial thing. If we organize it well we will show that this country has done a fantastic job. We have to do a lot of things, build stadiums, roads and airports.

The Warsaw Destination Alliance is just one of the institutions trying to show that Poland can do this. We’ve never done anything like this before but I think it’s going to be OK.

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