As of the end of September, the Ministry for National Economy launches a tourism promotion campaign of some HUF 26 million designed to maintain Hungary’s tourism market share in Russia, Deputy State Secretary for Tourism Ádám Ruszinkó told Hungarian news agency MTI.

The number of Russian tourists has dropped significantly since the onset of the Russia-Ukraine crisis in Europe as well as in Hungary, including a sharp slump of arrivals in Héviz. Therefore, the Hungarian Tourism Ltd – together with main service providers of Héviz, the Héviz local government and three major Russian travel agencies – launches a joint promotion campaign in Moscow in order to offset the effect of downturn, he said.

Within the Hungarian tourism sector, cultural and health tourism development projects implemented over the past fifteen years have been delivering great results; tourism has become a main economic growth engine, generating more than 9 percent of GDP by now. With the establishment of a CEE-China Tourism Cooperation Centre in Budapest and the launching of a direct flight between Budapest and Beijing as of 1 May, tourism relations with China – the largest tourism source country of the world -- have reached a milestone.

Due partly to the re-launching of direct flights by Air China after they had been suspended by Hainan Air in 2012, the number of tourism visas for Hungary issued for Chinese citizens more than doubled in the second quarter compared to the same period of the previous year. The number of Schengen visa applications for tourism purposes was as high as it was during the entire last year. The number of Chinese guests visiting Hungary is estimated to grow by 30 percent this year and exceed 200 thousand.

Ádám Ruszinkó also said that a new National Tourism Development Concept is being drafted, with active participation by the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry as well as every major professional organization. As a result of negotiations, the Concept will propose the reform of current vocational training system and the introduction of a new, high-level tourism education programme.  It is also among the objectives to turn Budapest into an international conference tourism destination. The medium-term development concept for conference tourism in Budapest, which includes the building of a congress centre to host thousands of people, has also been completed and it currently awaits government approval.

(Ministry for National Economy)