You can come to Hungary with a cruiser on the Danube from this Thursday on!

Budapest coronavirus Coronavirus in Hungary Danube European Union Hungary travel water

Budapest Duna Danube Parliament Parlament

Hungarian Parliament Photo: Pixabay / Hermann

Hungary has been gradually reopening the borders of the country for the past weeks. Finally, from this Thursday on, it is also possible to arrive on a ship!

As Hungary is approaching 5,5 million administered coronavirus doses, in a matter of days we can ditch masks and go freely to a restaurant, a hotel or a bath without the immunity certificate.

When it comes to travelling and tourism, the country is slowly returning to normality. On Wednesday,

Hungary re-opened its borders to six neighbouring countries.

This means that

arriving in the Central European country on a cruiser is a possibility, once again.

The first two cruisers and boat hotels arrived that day, quoted telex.hu the words of Alexandra Szentkirályi, spokeswoman of the government, who announced the news in a Facebook video.

At first, this might not sound like such a big deal, however, it does have huge importance.

These ships were not able to sail on the Danube due to the pandemic ever since last September,

which caused a significant loss for Hungarian tourism. Every year a high number of travellers and tourists chose the option of a ship or a cruiser to travel through or directly visit Hungary.

Over 300 tourists are travelling onboard these two ships mentioned above. The cruise includes Mohács and Esztergom, as well, apart from Budapest.

These decisions, such as opening the borders for neighbouring countries, facilitate the rehabilitation of tourism in Hungary. Ultimately, it will boost other businesses of the sector:

restaurants, sight-seeing buses, or guided city tours will all benefit from it very soon.

But what will happen to the tourism of Budapest after the setback? How long will it take the Hungarian capital to recuperate from this awful year?

Here you can read about some estimations, based on the past decade’s example

Budapest Brand, Budapest Municipality’s company in charge of tourism and the image of the city said at an online conference in April that the whole recuperation process of the traffic of tourists will not happen before next Spring. Vice-president of the Association of Hungarian Hotels and Restaurants highlighted the importance of when and how the European Union will authorise the travel of tourists arriving from a non-EU country.

When it comes to European member countries, the implementation of the EU immunity certificate is right around the corner.
It will enter into effect in all EU countries from July 1.

How will the EU certificate work?