The American Porthole Cruise Magazine: Budapest Is The Best River Port

Would you have ever thought that American tourists think Budapest has the best river port? The American Porthole Cruise Magazine annually makes a list on the basis of votes of American voyagers about the best ports.

According to the list published in the February edition of the Magazine, Monte Carlo is the best European port while the best river port is in Budapest.

The Világgazdaság Online reported that the main source of income of the MAHART-PassNave Ltd. is from the welcoming and serving of hotel ships. More than 110 ships sail between Amsterdam – Budapest and Lower-Danube region and Budapest yearly. The ships usually remain in Budapest for 2-3 days’ long due to the change of tourists. Tickets can been purchased by travel agencies, one group of tourists can arrive here by ship and then fly home, while the another group arrives by plane to travel across Europe by ship then.

Receiving of these ships is a good business both for the PassNave Ltd. and Budapest as well. Those tourists who stay here during their voyage usually do a big shopping in the neighborhood of Váci Street and Nagycsarnok. During the changing period of tourists ships could be cleaned and refilled with fuel and the tourist groups could stay in hotels along the Danube bank. Besides, all the parties and cultural programs are organized by the Hungarian travel agencies and even the laundry is also arranged by Hungarian companies!

The Világgazdaság Online added that Gabor Spányik, the executive director of the PassNave Ltd. attempts to include even more Hungarian venues in the sightseeing programs. Interestingly, the capital’s ports receive as many ships alone as the rural ports altogether. The ships arriving from the Lower-Danube region dock in several venues and locations like Kalocsa, Solt and Mohács while the others ships from Western Europe stop in Esztergom and Visegrád. The vg.hu also mentioned that eventually the ship-tourism of Visegrád has increased whereas that of Esztergom has not decreased recently.

Moreover, the PassNave Ltd. developed a plan on the employment of Hungarian workers in foreign ships aiming at providing international wages for Hungarian taxpayers. According to Gabor Spányik, the plan seems to be able to realize by next year. One quarter of those 10.000 employees who work on the ships sailing in the Danube area are Hungarians. Gabor Spányik hopes that those employees who work in Switzerland, Germany and Liechtenstein will return if they see they could get Western European wages through the subsidiaries of the MAHART-PassNave. The company aims to increase the number of Hungarian workers up to one thousand in the following years.

The company launches a subsidiary which could give a hand – co-operating with Hungarian Vocational Training Institutions – for those people who would like to have a job in the shipping area. For this reason, the company has been elaborating a practical training syllabus together with the Hungarian Shipping Vocational and Trade School, so 30 young students may receive summer internship this year. The same program was adopted by the Károly Gundel Tourism and Catering Vocational School, thus another 30 students could get a summer internship from that institution.

“We would like to move the logistics centre of the shipping companies to Budapest where all the necessary appliances – from dinner set to table clothes etc. – can be found in one place. Moreover, we are working hard on making all those ships which stay in Linz, Wien or Strasbourg for winter remain in Budapest. Thus, all the maintenance works could be done by the Hungarian small and medium-sized enterprises enabling them to achieve extra income which could be considered as exports” – Spányik Gábor summarized.

based on article of vg.hu
by Valentina Leanyfalvi

Photo: folyamhajo.hu

Source: http://www.vg.hu/