Magazine: Logical needs

László Kovács, the president of the Guild of Hungarian Restaurateurs (MVI) was interviewed by KamaraOnline. He told: he hopes that the sector can now plan for the long term in cooperating with Dr Gusztáv Bienerth, government commissioner for tourism. Mr Kovács explained that there is hospitality without tourism, but there is no tourism without the hospitality sector – those who prepare development concepts should keep this in mind. It is very important to create legislation that can be put into practice without problems. The president added that MVI’s recommendations are now being studied by Mr Bienerth’s team and they will be discussed in the autumn. Some of these proposals require amending existing laws but others don’t need this, they can be introduced at once, e.g. the issue of tips given to waiters.

There are many micro-, small and medium-sized businesses in the hospitality sector, which make a hefty contribution to the nation’s budget in the form of taxes. The issue of labour force has been a problem for the sector for a long time, this is the reason why Mr Kovács welcomes the fact that the VAT on hospitality services will drop to 18 percent from 2017 and to 5+4 percent from 2018. He stated that hospitality businesses’ reputation has been improving only slowly, but guests do appreciate the hard work of those who are active in the sector. He told that the hospitality industry would greatly benefit from it if guidelines referring especially to the sector were collected by various authorities (tax, safety at work, etc.), just like the National Food Chain Safety Office (NÉBIH) did it in a publication.