Hungarian travel agencies ready for a surge of foreign tourists

tourism Budapest Hungary Chain Bridge kató alpár

Photo: Daily News Hungary

The whole World has met with a threat never seen before, and it forced almost all of us to stay in our homes for more than an entire year now. People could not really travel abroad, and this may affect the number of people willing to travel, but also their budget on where to travel.

According to Vg, this is where Hungary might come into the picture. Although the situation is not bright at all, according to Hungarian Inbound Professionals’ Association (Mabeusz) member

travel agencies have been hoping to achieve the movement of 50,000 tourists who would have brought approximately HUF 1.8 billion (€ 5 million), but since this expected number, only 35,000 remained which barely hit the HUF 1 billion (€ 2.78 million) mark,

but nothing guarantees that it will not decrease further. As a base for comparison, the same group of agencies have arranged the travel of 260,000 tourists to Hungary, who have approximately spent around HUF 16 billion (€ 44.4 million) in 2019, one year before the coronavirus pandemic.

There are several problems to combat for these agencies but they are still hoping for a good summer season. One of the problems is that many major events, such as Balaton Sound and Telekom VOLT festival, not to mention other regional and cultural events have been postponed to 2022, some to 2023, and there are events scheduled only by 2024 with some even having been cancelled altogether.

If the tourism would get a green light, the Hungarian Inbound Professionals’ Association (Mabeusz) expects visitors mainly from the European Union, but there is some demand for travelling to Hungary from the British and Scandinavian markets.

With only a scarce number of visitors from overseas countries as the future of long-distance travel via aeroplanes is still uncertain due to the pandemic restrictions.

Until the travel agencies do not know exactly what the conditions to travel to Hungary or to Europe in general will be,

The majority of Hungarians would demand immunity certificates from foreign visitors

they cannot advertise any travels or programmes and if or when they do get this information, there will be a huge competition for tourists. Some countries like Greece, Croatia, Malta and Thailand have already started to communicate their conditions towards those who would like to spend their vacation there, but Hungary has not done so yet. Also, it would probably be in line with the conditions of other countries of the European Union, which have also not crystallised yet.

Malta to give money for each tourist visiting the country

Another possible issue that could hinder tourism is that there are rumours that some foreign travel agencies that have been in contact with Hungarian ones and helped to get more tourists for Hungary have gone bankrupt due to the pandemic. The Hungarian agencies are not untouched either.

Some necessary people who spoke many languages have either went away looking for a job to sustain themselves, or the agencies had to cut some people due to the hardships. This accounts for almost 40% of the employees according to the estimations of Judit Lázár, the head of the Hungarian Inbound Professionals’ Association (Mabeusz).

According to a survey, about 71.7% of Hungarians are planning to travel somewhere. The most bellowed destinations seem to be Lake Balaton and the capital, Budapest. Everguest and Tárki have asked Hungarians who have been on more than a single night long vacation in the past two years. According to those who have made the survey, Hungarians will have a higher travel spirit after the restrictions and would even consider spending more.

10.7 % of people would travel abroad if the pandemic would tame and 40.2 % would travel domestically and 20.8 % would travel to both domestic and foreign locations.

It seems that the percentage of people who do not want to travel is also quite high; 18.4 % are certain will not travel and 9.8% think are undecided on the matter.