Budapest more popular than ever – tourists flood the Hungarian capital!

If you get the feeling sometimes that the Hungarian capital is more crowded these days than it used to be – your instincts are correct. A growing number of people have chosen Budapest as their destination in the past years. The reason for this increasing Budapest-hype can be attributed to the growing number of direct flights connecting the capital to various cities in the world as well as to the new and effective communication campaigns – reports forbes.hu.

Recent data shows that, compared to January, 6% more people visited Budapest who spent 4.6% nights more in the beautiful city in the 5th month of the year. Translated into numbers, this means that 1 671 916 people have spent 3 876 020 nights in Budapest in the first 5 months of 2018, 86.3% of whom were from abroad. The Budapest Festival and Tourism Centre points out the importance of the tendency that can be observed:

“If the growth will continue, by May 2019, the record-breaking 1 billion nights spent in Budapest could be seen.”

The most people visiting the city are still from Hungary – Hungarian tourists spent over 100 thousand nights – 119 096 to be exact – in the capital in May. The increasing interest can be seen in many of the numbers. There were 12.2% more people spending nights in the capital as tourists from Hungary, a number much higher than that of the tourists from other countries (3.5%). In the period between January and May, there were 529 499 guest nights registered.

As for the foreign tourists, most of them still arrive from the UK.

Next comes Italy, while Germany is in third place for the number of tourists that visit Hungary. The fourth place is taken by the US, which can be explained by LOT and American Airlines’s weekly 13 planes connecting Budapest to three major US cities – New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. The planes started their journey in May and a 26% increase in the number of American tourists could be observed in the first month already. At first, the trend is to arrive in groups, however, later on, it is expected that lone travellers will take advantage of the direct flights, too.

Russia also made it into the Top 5 list of the origin countries of tourists in Budapest, with guests spending over 100 thousand nights in the Hungarian capital. France, China, Spain, and Israel also finished high on the list.

Sweden is the last to make it to the Top 10 list, with around 77 thousand nights spent.

The most notable increase in the number of nights spent in Budapest was seen primarily by Spain (+22.4%), Israel (+17.4%), Canada (+15.1%), Germany (+10.7%), the USA (+9.3%) and Japan (+7.5%). However, Ukraine, India, and China also showed signs of sending an increasing number of tourists in the first 5 months. Moreover, a growing number of tourists arrived from countries in the Eastern part of Central Europe, like the Check Republic (+8.9%), Romania (+8.6%) and Croatia (+6.5%).

Regarding accommodation, commercial spots earned a gross amount of 80 billion forints (245 390 150.92 EUR) in 5 months, showing a 9.7% increase.

On the other hand, renting a room also became slightly more expensive, over 16 thousand forints (49.08 EUR) per night, revealing a 9.5% increase here as well.

There has been a boom going on on the real estate market and it affects offers of quality accommodation as well.

Between 2017 and 2020, there will be 3700 new hotels opened in the Hungarian capital.

Just in the remaining months of 2018, there will be 500 new hotel rooms handed over. For instance, the Cortile Hotel in Dessewffy Street is expected to be opened in the second half of 2018, along with a 3-star hotel of the Meininger chain that is being built behind the Great Markethall, not to mention the newest, 5-star hotel with 110 rooms by the Ibis Styles Budapest City West and the Mellow Mood Hotels that will replace the Wien Hotel. This latest hotel is run by The Unbound Collection by Hyatt and is expected to start its trial run in the winter month this year, in the marvellous building in the Paris Court.

In related news, check out this article about the ‘alcoholic’ history of Budapest.

Featured image: PreProduction on Vimeo

Source: forbes.hu