The total number of guests and tourism nights increased by 7.1 percent and 5.2 percent, respectively, according to data released today by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH), Minister of State for Economic Regulation Béla Glattfelder said the excellent performance of the tourism sector is the result of the Government’s focused, multi-year tourism development policy, better quality services and the SZÉP Card.

Hungary’s accommodation establishments received 6.5 million guests in the initial eight months of the year, who spent some HUF 126bn on accommodation fees and 17.2 million tourism nights. These figures are signalling that the positive tourism trend has continued.

The main driver of growth was the increase in the number of domestic guests, as the growth in the number of Hungarian tourists and respective tourism nights is two-and-a-half times and some four-times higher, respectively, compared to those of foreign guests, the Minister of State pointed out. In the third summer month, the number of tourism nights by both foreign and domestic guests was up (by 1.2 percent and 6.1 percent, respectively), totalling 3.8 million. In August, tourism traffic as a whole was 3.8 percent higher, while accommodation fee revenues jumped by some 12 percent year-on-year.

Despite unfavourable weather conditions, 1.3 million guests spent 3.8 million tourism nights at accommodation establishments, generating gross accommodation fee revenues of HUF 25bn (+11.7 percent).

As Béla Glattfelder said, the higher number of tourism nights by foreign guests has fuelled tourism traffic at several Hungarian regions. For example, in spite of poor weather the number of tourism nights at Lake Balaton, the second most-frequented tourism region, was up by some 7 percent year-on-year. The 744 thousand tourism nights by domestic guests registered at Lake Balaton are 3.6 percent higher in comparison to August 2013.

Hungary’s leading source countries showed massive tourism traffic in August. In spite of gloomy expectations, the number of Russian guests declined only slightly. The number of German guests increased by 8.9 percent, following a slight decrease recorded in July. The number of tourists from the region showed impressive growth regarding Slovakia (19.7 percent), Poland (15.2 percent) and Austria (11.6 percent), but tourism traffic growth from the USA was also encouraging (15.3 percent).

(Ministry for National Economy)