EN
The growing impact of tourism on spatial changes, resulting in the increasing importance of land use planning process, with particular emphasis on the needs of the tourism sector. This article was developed as part of the research task: ‘Spatial Planning tourism and recreation’, which was implemented in IGPiM in 2013-2014. In the intention of the author, this article was meant as starting point for further work carried out in the framework of the research task. Therefore, the article has a theoretical character, and is based on the literature review, in particular related to tourism geography. The article discusses five theoretical concepts referring to the planning of tourist areas, and also discusses some selected documents related to the tourism development in Poland. In summary needs and problems related to spatial planning of tourism areas has been identified.