In light of data from the initial eleven months of 2014, last year was another milestone for the Hungarian tourism sector as statistics show double-digit growth following a similar expansion in 2013, Minister for National Economy Mihály Varga said at a press conference held at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest.
He stressed that the sector plays a decisive role within the Hungarian economy as it generates some 9 percent of total GDP and employs more than 11 percent of the labour force.
As the Minister added, 2013 is remembered as a year of record-breaking results, but the latest data show that last year was even better than that. Thus, the sector has been expanding for the fourth consecutive year. Mihály Varga pointed out that real income growth has been one of the factors contributing to these achievements, as families have more money to spend within the domestic tourism sector.
Among the statistics he highlighted data that in January-November 2014 the number of guests and tourism nights was up by 6.8 percent and 5 percent, respectively, in comparison to the corresponding period of the previous year. Double-digit growth was again recorded with regard to accommodation revenues from domestic guests in January-November 2014, as these increased by some 15 percent year-on-year, while those from foreign guest were also almost 10 percent higher, Mihály Varga said.
The majority of tourists continued to come from traditional countries of origin such as Germany that tops the ranking, followed by Austria and Russia. The number of Slovakian and Czech tourists jumped by 17.1 percent and 11.2 percent, respectively, in the initial eleven months of the year, which signals that more and more people in the region pick Hungary as tourism destination. As a new development, he added, the number of guests from Romania has also increased and instead of dropping the number of Russians actually increased by 3 percent in 2014.
He emphasised that the great performance of the tourism sectors stemmed mainly from the results of the domestic tourism sector; tourism traffic was higher in each Hungarian region. This trend is expected to continue in 2015 as people will have more money to spend on tourism-related services.
Tourism sector growth has also been underpinned by the SZÉP Card (recreation voucher): payments through the system totalled HUF 15bn at accommodation establishments up to November last year which constitutes an increase of 8 percent year-on-year. The number of card holders exceeded 1 million at the end of last December, as 24 thousand employers transferred more than HUF 76bn to the cards, up by 12 percent over the past one year.
As the Minister pointed out, the domestic tourism sector still has reserves. Since the SZÉP Card programme was introduced, enterprises have received some HUF 185bn and the Government continues to support the system through preferential taxation.
In 2014-2020, a significant share of EU funding will be channelled to the sector and enterprises can claim subsidies for, among others, innovative national tourism marketing projects.
(Ministry for National Economy)
