| Abstract | Tourism, also in reference to rural areas, makes up an important component of the policy implemented at any level of the administrative division of the country. For that reason this article aims at the specification of the criterion which would indicate the rank of the tourist functions in the rural areas. The article has assumed the hypothesis that the ratio between the selected expenses of the commune, understood as outlay, to the effects, understood as the tourist functions index of the place, may serve as such criterion (following Baretje and Defert). To verify the assumed hypothesis, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was used. The analysis was carried out in 67 rural communes in kujawsko-pomorskie province. Following the carried out analysis, it was found that the technical effectiveness may be deemed as a criterion which determines the rank of the tourist functions in the area of a rural commune. For those rural communes which put a priority to the development of the tourist functions the relative performance ratio should amount to 1, while in the case of rural communes focused on multi-functional development, including the development of tourist services but not mainly, the analyzed ratio should exceed the average value obtained in the communes under the analysis |
