Hotels and restaurants in Hungary have become the most expensive in the EU – Lake Balaton’s price advantage is melting away

According to data from the Central Statistical Office, in 2012, Hungarian tourists spent more than twice as much per day in Croatia as at Lake Balaton, but by 2024 this difference had shrunk to 22 percent. The catching-up with Mediterranean countries is also spectacular: the previous three-to-fourfold cost difference is now barely double.

Hotel prices in Hungary increased by 80 percent between 2015 and 2024, while in Croatia, Greece and Italy by 40 percent. The difference in restaurant services is even greater: prices have more than doubled in Hungary, compared to around 70 percent in Croatia and 25 percent in the Mediterranean. In cheaper accommodation (campsites, hostels), the price increase was 96 percent, which was surpassed only by Lithuania in the EU.

In the early 2010s, Hungarian hotels operated with extremely depressed prices, partly due to the 2008 crisis and Swiss franc loans. To alleviate their liquidity problems, many accommodations made extremely cheap offers, which depressed prices for many years. The current price increase is partly a correction of this, and partly a consequence of international trends in tourism inflation.

Interestingly, despite the significant price increase, Lake Balaton’s traffic did not drop significantly: it produced particularly strong seasons after the epidemic. In contrast, other domestic destinations, especially Budapest and the Central Danube Region, have experienced a serious decline in traffic – half of domestic tourists have disappeared from these regions since 2012.