In September 2014, tourism traffic growth within the Hungarian tourism sector has continued, as the number of tourism nights reached 2 million, while the total number of guests jumped by 4.9 percent, year-on-year. Higher traffic is also reflected by income data: accommodation fee revenues exceeded HUF 18bn, which constitutes an increase of some 9 percent in the observed period. Growth in the number of domestic guests has continued to be an engine of the sector’s remarkable performance. This trend has been driven by tourism investment projects, better quality services and the SZÉP Card.

In the first month of autumn, the number of domestic guests and respective tourism nights was up by 8.2 percent and 7.3 percent, respectively, and as a consequence accommodation fee revenues in this category showed a double-digit increase of 12.7 percent. The number of foreign guests edged up by 2.3 percent and – although the number of respective tourism nights fell slightly – respective accommodation fee revenues were 7.4 percent higher. This means that, as a whole, 844 thousand guests spent more than 2 million tourism nights at accommodation establishments, constituting year-on-year growth of 4.9 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively.

As far as the initial nine months of the year are concerned, Hungarian accommodation establishments received more than 7.4 million guests, an increase of some 6.8 percent, who paid fees of HUF 144bn for more than 19.3 million tourism nights. The fact that tourism traffic was higher in every region in the January-September period shows that tourism sector growth has been balanced. The largest increases were registered in Southern Great Plain, Northern Hungary, Central Transdanubia and Northern Great Plain regions.

Parallel to the good performance of the domestic tourism sector, indicators concerning the SZÉP Card also improved: the amount of payments through the SZÉP Card was more than HUF 13bn this year, up by 10.5 percent year-on-year. Within that amount, payments totalled HUF 816 million in September. As another positive development, in the period January-September accommodation fee revenue growth was 14.2 percent, exceeding that of SZÉP Card payments.

(Ministry for National Economy)