The tourism sector may this year reach record high figures, as the number of guests at accommodation establishments is expected to hit 10 million, the number of tourism nights and the amount of tourism revenues are to exceed 25 million and HUF 35bn, respectively, by the end of the year, Deputy State Secretary for Tourism Ádám Ruszinkó said at a press conference organized to mark World Tourism Day.

He pointed out that although the sector has recorded excellent data in each year since 2010, it is “a fragile genre”, and a couple of bad news may cause massive damage. That is why, concerning the migration issue, it must be emphasised at every possible forum that Hungary is an absolutely safe and welcoming destination, and tourists are not at all likely to be confronted with the problem, he said.

This year’s theme of the World Tourism Day is "One Billion Tourists, One Billion Opportunities", as the number of international arrivals has been above the one billion mark for the past years, he added. According to WTO data, tourism generates 10 percent of global GDP and creates one in eleven jobs, and Hungary is no exception.

Hungary and Budapest have been becoming ever more popular and the key to this success has been hospitality, he stressed.

Hungarian Tourism Ltd CEO Péter Faragó said, UNWTO statistics show that in the first half of 2015 the number of international tourist arrivals in Hungary grew by more than four times the global average, by 17.5 percent. This, he pointed out, has been the result – in addition to state measures and development projects – of the hospitality and openness of Hungarian people as well as the hard work of tourism professionals.

As an initiative of Hungarian Tourism Ltd, the tourism sector’s state institutions and major professional organizations signed a joint declaration on the occasion of World Tourism Day.  In this, the Ministry for National Economy, the Hungarian Association of Hotels and Restaurants, the Hungarian Inbound Professionals' Association, the Association of Hungarian Travel Agencies, the Association of Hungarian Event Organizers and the Hungarian Baths Association endeavour to continue a close cooperation also in the future in order to maintain and bolster favourable tourism trends and improve the sector’s position abroad.

(Ministry for National Economy)