Several Hungarian baths to be closed from Monday

From Monday, several Hungarian baths will be temporarily closed. Baths and visitors alike fear a wave of closures that was avoided last year. They are slowly losing the crowd of visitor that was generated by the holidays.

The winter break, which has been extended this year, has brought several full house days and excellent year-end sales to many spas, Vg.hu reports.

“The moment of truth, however, will come on Monday, 9 January, and in the weeks that follow, when it will become clear what kind of domestic and foreign visitor traffic the facilities can expect in the period before the beach season,”

said Zoltán Balogh, Secretary General of the Hungarian Bathing Association. According to him, the extended winter holiday resulted in several fully booked days. The problem is that the now 10-12 percent rise in ticket prises does not solve the deficit caused by rising costs. They make ends meet with the profits from the previous years.

• Read also: Here is how Hungarian spas will combat rising energy prices

A test period will now begin in the remaining baths, where further price increases will be introduced. The purpose is to test if more revenue is generated from the sale of more expensive tickets than is lost due to falling numbers of visitors.

Record prices in Hungarian baths

Budapest’s historic spas have seen the highest price rises, with a 30 percent increase to start the year, but this is not deterring the main target audience of foreign tourists. In Western Europe, the EUR 30 increase in Budapest ticket prices is considered to be quite average.

The baths and spas Hungarians once considered cheap now have to increase their prices. For example, Veresegyház Bath will increase their ticket prices by 190 percent. The price of tickets has jumped from HUF 1400 (EUR 3.54) to HUF 4000 (EUR 10.12). The increase in revenue is only enough to cover a fraction of the increased spending, since they have still not recovered from the price increase ban imposed during Covid and from the rising energy prices. Also, the spa sector was left out of the HUF 30 billion (EUR 76 million) tourism rescue aid programme.

As we wrote in our earlier article in details, there is a trick for saving money when visiting these facilities. Those who buy a Zsigmondy card can buy tickets for a reduced price. The card has to be made in Budapest, at the customer service centre of the Budapest Gyógyfürdői Zrt. The administration requires two weeks, so it is more favourable for those working or studying here.

They might reopen if they have people to employ

“Several spas are now preparing for temporary closures, including large ones, which is also very dangerous because without job retention support they will not be able to avoid redundancies for long and will not have anyone to reopen,” warned the association’s secretary general.

According to vg.hu, baths are fundamental tourist attractions, especially in rural areas. Their preservation and continued operation are a key to the future of entire regions. The example of the Miskolctapolca Cave Baths is a warning of the impact of possible closure.

• Read also: The most popular cave bath in Hungary could close down?

Some of the facilities limit their opening times, so they only operate when they expect more visitors. For exmaple, Göd spa is closed on Mondays to save on their energy consumption. The Tiszaörs and Mezőcsát baths have had to make greater sacrifices. In these villages, the baths are only open from Friday to Sunday, during the busier periods. The advantage of this is that local residents are not left without an experience and those who want to recover can also enjoy the benefits of the thermal waters.

Termalfurdo.hu continously updates the list of closed or permanently closed Hungarian baths.

Source: vg.hu