Looking at the year as a whole, tourist arrivals are generally on the rise; however, tourism performance in the coming months will depend largely on global trends and the exchange rate of the forint, Visit Hungary announced on Monday.
In their analysis sent to MTI, they highlighted that in May, tourist traffic rose by 2.6% nationwide to 1.8 million, and accommodations recorded 3.9 million guest nights. Domestic demand and performance in rural areas continued to drive tourism in May, with the number of domestic visitors rising by 4.9% and the number of guest nights spent by them increasing by 2.8% compared to the previous year. Looking at the year as a whole, tourist traffic is on an overall upward trend: between January and May, 6.5 million travelers arrived – 2% more than last year – and they spent 14.7 million guest nights at domestic accommodations, a 0.2% increase.
The number of international travelers in May – 855,000 – also exceeded the figure from a year ago (+0.2%), while the number of foreign guest nights – 2 million – declined compared to last year. According to the analysis, this was driven by geopolitical uncertainty stemming from the conflict in the Middle East, the energy market shock, and deteriorating consumer sentiment observed in most of our major source markets. These challenges primarily had a negative impact on traffic in Budapest, where the proportion of international guest-nights is the highest. In the capital, there was an overall decline in May in both the number of foreign travelers and their overnight stays – despite the UEFA Champions League final, officials reported.
The appeal of regional destinations and domestic tourism continued to strengthen: 60.4% of the country’s total accommodation traffic was recorded in regional areas. Interest in destinations outside the capital was up 4.7% compared to last year, and 70.2% of guest nights spent outside Budapest were attributable to domestic guests.
In May, among the tourist regions, accommodations in the Mátra-Bükk and Budapest areas recorded the second-highest number of guest nights after Lake Balaton. In eight of the 11 rural tourist regions, the number of guest nights increased: the largest growth was recorded in the Gyula and Pécs-Villány regions.
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