Government accepts tourism development strategy in Hungary

Hungary’s government has accepted the National Tourism Development Strategy 2030, a guideline for “all players of the sector until 2030”, Zoltán Güller, CEO of the Hungarian Tourism Agency, told the Tourism Summit 2017 conference in Budapest on Monday.

Addressing the event, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that the strategy will “secure for Hungary a worthy place in world tourism”. He added that the government had earmarked a total 828 billion forints (EUR 2.7bn) to finance the scheme.

Tourism is not merely a source of revenue or a prosperous sector of Hungarian economy but a “form of patriotism, a mission”, he said.

Orbán praised the sector’s “unstoppable development”. He said “2016 was a record year, with the data available suggesting that this year will be even better.”

Hungary’s tourism sector will receive a direct injection of 21 billion forints (EUR 68m) from the central budget in 2017,

while next year the sector will receive over 53 billion forints, the prime minister said, adding that investments in tourism could also total further hundreds of billions.