Péter Horváth: foreign guest traffic will dictate the momentum of tourism

By: Trademagazin Date: 2023. 07. 03. 10:42

Assuming unchanged conditions, Péter Horváth, CEO of the Hungarian Tourism Agency (MTÜ), expects to exceed last year’s visitor traffic and increase revenues in real terms, according to a statement given to Világgazdaság. As he added, just as domestic visitor traffic during the pandemic, now foreign guest traffic dictates the momentum of tourism.

In an interview published on Monday in the online economic newspaper vg.hu, Péter Horváth stated that, in terms of guest traffic in the capital and abroad, they expect a 10-15 percent increase compared to last year, which corresponds to 90-95 percent of the pre-epidemic level.

The CEO of MTÜ said that in the first five months of the year, 12.2 million guest nights were registered by Hungarian hotels in the National Tourist Information Center (NTAK), which is 4 percent more than last year, which is mostly due to the greatly increasing foreign guest traffic.

He pointed out that “more people from each of our ten largest sending markets came to us between January and May than at the same time last year”.

As an example, he mentioned that the number of Italian guest nights almost doubled, and the Israeli and Polish almost one and a half times. More tourists came from Germany by a quarter and from the United Kingdom by a third so far this year compared to last May.

These countries account for about 60 percent of all foreign guest nights. He added that more foreign tourists than before appear in the countryside and not only on Lake Balaton, but also in the tourist areas of Gyula, Győr-Pannonhalma and Pécs-Villány.

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