MTÜ CEO: the most important task is to strongly increase the number of guest nights

László Könnyid emphasized: the domestic tourism results are only a hair behind the data of 2019, the record year before the war and epidemic. The year 2023 was about the gradual recovery of arrivals, which was especially spectacular in the capital, where the turnover of foreigners in accommodation increased by nearly 20 percent. All this was achieved despite the fact that, in addition to the armed conflict taking place next door, the terrorist attack in October almost reduced incoming traffic to Israel, which particularly affected Budapest sensitively, as this country is one of the main sending markets of the Hungarian capital – he explained. In the past year, domestic tourism already surpassed the results of the 2019 base year, and there were several months when it exceeded the very high values of 2022, he noted.

Thanks to these processes, accommodation revenues increased by 23 percent, above inflation, and reached HUF 859.5 billion. Thanks to the sector’s excellent performance, tourism contributed a record 1.4 billion euros to the hefty 3.3 billion euro asset of foreign trade in services in the third quarter of 2023, the CEO pointed out.