About Krakow
Why study in Krakow?
Krakow is a main city and one of the top tourist destination in the southern Poland. The city has a rich tradition as an academic, business and cultural center. Krakow has a number of national heritage facilities – hundreds of historical buildings and ancient monuments. It’s also very well prospering economically as it is placed at the crossroads of Europe.
Krakow’s convenient geographical location is at the crossroads of the most important Polish and European transit routes (Frankfurt – Kyiv). This location certainly enhances the development of modern technologies.
The city possesses an efficient and modern municipal transportation network. Additionally, it has an airport with a wide range of connections, serving over 5.8 million passengers per year. Planned investments in infrastructure and communication are an advantage for investors. These investments will expand the network of passenger and cargo transportation. The economic development of the region can also be gauged by the threefold increase in business visits in recent years.
Krakow as a Business centre
Lesser Poland is one of the most dynamic business regions in Europe. This is confirmed by its receipt of the European Entrepreneurial Region 2016 award from the European Committee of the Regions. According to the report by the Municipality of Krakow (State of the City Report for 2016), it is the human potential and closeness to the world that permitted Krakow to become the best European location for the sector of modern services.
Krakow has become one of the most important entrepreneurial centers in Poland. It offers the growth opportunity to start-ups based on knowledge, modern technologies and innovative solutions. Highly qualified personnel educated at Krakow universities make Krakow an attractive city for investors, who open here research-development centers of their companies, e.g.:
> Motorola Solutions Krakow Design Center,
> Delphi Technical Center,
> ABB Research Center.
Krakow has become a place where multinational corporations invest. The city has won a good reputation on the global exchange of specialist farms. Nearly 160 firms offering services to business are located here, e.g.
> Cisco,
> Akamai,
> Google,
> IBM,
> Lufthansa,
> Sabre,
> Pega,
> Sii,
> Zurich Insurance Company,
> State Street,
> HSBC,
> Hitachi,
> ABB,
> Aon and many others.
Almost 70,000 people are employed in the outsourcing sector in Krakow. Therefore it is the most important center of business services in Central and Eastern Europe. It ranks 8th globally in the Tholons Services Globalization Index 2017.
Krakow is situated very close to other equally dynamically developing economic zones where multinational corporations invest. For example Mabuchi Motor, a Japanese producer of motor components invested as much as 360 million PLN in Bochnia, thus creating 400 new jobs.
Krakow as an Academic centre
The city is the most academic city in Poland. More than 200,000 students, that is 1/5 of the inhabitants, are young and ambitious people. More than 10,000 people from all over Poland, Europe and the world begin studies in the capital of Lesser Poland region annually. This confirms a huge scientific potential of the city as well as unusual reputation and tradition of education
The capital of Lesser Poland is a perfect conference hub. Due to fantastic surroundings it attracts organizers of meetings and conferences from all over the world. 500 events of this type take place here annually.
Kraków as a Cultural centre
The capital of Lesser Poland region is also a European cultural center. In the year 2000 Krakow received the title of the European Capital of Culture, and is the most visited city in Poland by both Polish and foreign tourists.
Krakow won the seventh position out of 66 cities in the ranking Europolis 2018 Ranking: Civic Participation, which was prepared by the Schuman Foundation and the Insight Center for Policy Analysis. This means that Krakow is a city ‘involving residents in decision-making and building the space for agreement between local government authorities, business, science and civic society’.
In the 2018 ranking of one hundred most visited cities around the world (Top 100 City Destination 2018 Ranking), carried out by the Euromonitor International market research agency, Cracow ranked 75th, and with over 2.9 million tourists scored better than cities such as: Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, or Melbourne.
