Warsaw, Poland - Poles have expressed little interest so far in package trips to the Vatican to attend the May 1 beatification of the late Pope John Paul II, tour operators in Poland said Tuesday.
Several operators said they would be forced to cancel hotel reservations if they did not find enough customers.
"We have been advertising since January, and nobody has called. I have no clients for this trip," Artur Krowiak of travel operator Barthur told the German Press Agency dpa. "I don't know why (there is little interest,) but it cannot be because of the price."
Barthur was offering travel, food and a two-night stay at a hotel near Rome for 1570 zloty (556 dollars.)
A parish in Lublin, eastern Poland, said it only had half the people it needed to fill a bus on a six-day trip to Rome for the ceremony, the Metro daily reported.
In January, travel agencies had urged clients to hurry because they were running out of vacancies for their packaged trips. But those were only marketing slogans, Krowiak now concedes.
Some tour operators said interest was low because many Poles had been put off by forecasts that up to 1 million people planned to attend the event.
Karol Wojtyla was born in the Polish town of Wadowice on May 18, 1920. He became Pope John Paul II in 1978.
Millions of people, including many Poles, attended his funeral in 2005.