Krakow’s ‘Pink Purse’ campaign sends Polish Catholics ballistic

A BIT late, but funny nevertheless ….

Catholics in Poland are aghast that the city wants gays, rather than drunken straight stag-nighters to visit Krakow, which has lost patience with boozy Brits.

According to the Guardian, tourist authorities in the medieval city have outraged Catholic opinion by announcing plans to target the pink purse instead, with a new website and a city map for gay tourists.

Howled Piotr Kucharski, spokesman for the Christian Culture Association:

I don’t know which is worse! Drunken Britons may get their genitals out in public. But we don’t want gays performing public obscenities either.

If Catholics in Poland have a thing about the public display of genitals, they should rethink the Polish cycling team’s shorts

Besieged by protests, city tourist bosses have dropped the word ‘gay’ from their vocabulary.

Said Magdalena Sroka, who heads the Krakow Festival Office:

I’ve been told by my bosses that I’m not allowed to speak on this subject. But she confirmed that plans to advertise the city to a gay clientele were in progress.

We’re planning to broaden our offer to include the gay and lesbian target group. In the autumn we’ll be launching a special online section on gay tourism.

Izabela Helbin, from the city’s marketing and promotion office, told the daily Gazeta Wyborcza:

Research shows that gays and lesbians spend significantly more on holidays and entertainment than tourists travelling with family or friends. We plan to make money on this.

Club, pub and hotel owners are all for extending a special welcome to gay tourists. ‘Jesus, yes!’ said Thomas Naughton, owner of Irish bar Nic Nowego (Nothing New), adding:

Gay tourists behave a lot better - and they have more money. We were the first place in Krakow to put up signs saying ‘no Stag nights’.

In the euphoria of EU entry in 2004, Krakow welcomed boozy Brits arriving on cheap flights, but recent years have seen rising resentment against stag-night boozers who blight the cultural capital.

Said barmaid Kasia Krol:

They like to come in wearing suspenders and shout their songs in their own language all across the bar.

They hassle waitresses about sex and brothels. One stripped off in front of all the other guests. They’ve started drinking out of their shoes, which they think is really funny. They drop ash and spill beer and vomit, and then they go off to brothels.