Poland launches tourism campaign featuring Lewandowski, Eisenberg and Rubik

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland has launched a new advertising campaign to promote itself internationally and attract more tourists from “key European markets” and the United States.

The new initiative, which has the slogan “Poland. More than you expected”, features global Polish icons such as football star Robert Lewandowski, supermodel Anja Rubik, and Hollywood filmmaker Jesse Eisenberg, who received Polish citizenship last year.

A series of videos, the first of which was released Tuesday, will aim to present Poland as “modern, safe, diverse and authentic”, as well as “defying stereotypes”, says sports and tourism minister Jakub Rutnicki.

Commissioned by his ministry and launched by the Polish Tourism Organisation (POT), the campaign will be conducted in Germany, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The first video promotes Warsaw, Poland’s capital, and features Lewandowski, Rubik and Eisenberg appearing near the city’s landmarks. Polish actor Nikodem Rozbicki, meanwhile, plays the role of renowned 19th-century Polish composer Fryderyk Chopin.

In the 30-second spot, Chopin’s character declares that Warsaw is “where my heart is” – a reference to the fact that Chopin’s heart, preserved in cognac, was brought back to the city from Paris by his sister shortly after his death in 1849 and is now immured in a pillar in the city’s Holy Cross Church.

Lewandowski, who recently joined US football team Chicago Fire, tells viewers that Poland offers “more than you expected”, a reference to the campaign’s main slogan, which suggests to viewers that Poland may surprise them positively.

“Research shows that people who have visited Poland rate it much more favourably than their previous perceptions or media reports suggested,” notes POT in its press release.

Magdalena Krucz, the head of POT, adds that she believes the campaign “will be as surprising to audiences as Poland itself is to tourists who come to us for the first time”. However, the slogan is not new: it has been used by POT to promote Poland since 2021.

The new campaign will also feature Nobel Peace Prize winner and former president Lech Wałęsa, who led the Solidarity movement that brought down Poland’s former communist regime. POT notes that he remains “one of the most recognisable symbols in the world of the fight for freedom and democracy”.

The music is arranged by Radzimir Dębski, better known as Jimek, a Polish composer and conductor who has regularly performed with US rap legend Snoop Dogg.

Poland has experienced a tourism boom in recent years. Last year, the country recorded the European Union’s second-fastest growth in the number of nights spent in tourist accommodation, behind only Malta.

The biggest tourist draw is the historic city of Kraków, which was last year named the best city break destination in Europe by members of British consumer association and magazine Which? for the fifth time. This year, Time Out magazine rated Kraków the 16th best city in the world.

However, the country has a wide range of tourist-friendly destinations, including long, sandy beaches on the northern Baltic coast, mountains in the south, the lake district of Masuria, as well as many historic cities and modern museums and galleries.

The city of Lublin in eastern Poland, which will be a European City of Culture in 2029, last year welcomed a record 2.2 million visitors, including over half a million from abroad.

The city is known for its rich Jewish history, and featured prominently in the 2024 Oscar-nominated film A Real Pain, directed by and starring Eisenberg, whose ancestors were Jews from Lublin and the nearby town of Krasnystaw.

Last year, the sport and tourism ministry announced that it wants tourism to contribute 9% of GDP within a decade, from about 5% now. The strategy includes creating a “Polish brand” through which internationally recognised athletes, artists, historical figures and products are showcased more prominently.

Last month, the government appointed a marketing and branding expert to develop a unified strategy for promoting the country abroad, saying the move will help boost tourism, support Polish products and attract foreign investment.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: POT (press materials)

Olivier Sorgho

Olivier Sorgho is senior editor at Notes from Poland, covering politics, business and society. He previously worked for Reuters.