Hungarian city named one of Europe’s top tourist destinations

Photo: facebook.com/VeszpremBalaton2023

Veszprém has been recognised as one of Europe’s most popular tourist destinations in the European Best Destinations 2023 international competition. The city also received the jury’s special award for being a family-friendly tourist destination.

Veszprém took the 7th place in the international public vote, even ahead of London, vehir.hu reported.

A major milestone

Gyula Porga, Mayor of Veszprém, and Beáta Bérczi, head of Veszprém Tourism Non-profit Ltd. gave detailed information about the public vote at a press conference. They also discussed the opportunities that this recognition has brought for the city.

According to the Mayor, this recognition is a significant milestone. One of Veszprém’s most important strategic objectives is to be among the 20 most liveable cities in Europe by 2030. This recognition will help to make the historic city and the values of its region even more widely known.

In addition, he pointed out that Veszprém has already been placed on the map of top tourist destinations by winning the title of European Capital of Culture. Now, this latest recognition will further help the city to move towards the objective it has set for itself.

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About the competition

As the portal reports, the European Best Destinations organisation, which held the vote, was founded to promote European tourism. The organisation was established in 2009 and today operates the largest and most visited tourism portal in Europe. It is therefore not surprising that it is in contact with all European tourism agencies. It has also built up close partnerships with Forbes, Yahoo and National Geographic.

Beáta Bérczi presented the process of the competition. As she said, in 2021, Veszprém was listed by a professional jury as one of the destinations from which the winner was chosen by a public vote. She added that together with her team, they submitted a highly thorough application a few years ago so that the city could be considered for this recognition.

With 700,000 votes from 178 countries, the organisation has published a list of Europe’s top 20 tourist destinations. Veszprém gained the prestigious 7th place with 41,000 votes. Essen (Germany), which finished 6th, received only 1000 more votes. Behind Veszprém, London (United Kingdom) came 8th with 9,000 fewer votes than the Hungarian city. The winner was Warsaw (Poland). To see the full list, click HERE.

Veszprém also won the jury’s special award as the most family-friendly tourist destination. In this category, the city was not even nominated, thus it was not awarded on the basis of the public vote, but on the jury’s decision.