Hungary Reports Record Numbers on World Tourism Day

The tourism industry has been celebrating World Tourism Day on September 27 every year since 1980, at the initiative of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UN Tourism), VisitHungary said in a statement on Friday.

Recalling the social and economic importance of the sector, Visit Hungary pointed out that tourism provides a livelihood for some 400,000 families and accounts for more than 12% of GDP. In the summer, Hungarian hotels welcomed nearly seven million guests, which is 8.6% more than last year's record year.

Records were also broken in the first eight months of the year, with national tourism up by almost 11% year-on-year and Budapest's growth even doubling to more than 22%.

They stressed that this day is a day of special attention for the sector, which is one of the key drivers of the new economic recovery. Tourism-related consumption and employment account for more than 10 percent of central budget revenues. And the sector contributed EUR 925 million to the EUR 2.9 billion surplus in the balance of trade in services in the second quarter of this year, accounting for around a third of the positive balance.

As Visit Hungary pointed out, the strong growth of the sector is also reflected in the fact that never before have so many people stayed in domestic accommodation during the high season as this year, they said. According to the National Tourist Information Center (NTAK), the nearly seven million guests are almost nine per cent more than last summer, and the almost 18 million guest nights they spent were almost 3% more than last year.

The capital took a big share of the summer record, with around 2 million guests arriving in Budapest, a fifth more than in the summer of 2023. Lake Balaton was also particularly popular, with more than 1.7 million visitors in June-August, 6.2% more than a year earlier. And the region's hotels recorded 5.5 million more nights than the capital by 20%.

Thanks to the tourism boom, the sector also performed better than expected in the first eight months of the year. A total of 12.5 million guests spent 31.5 million nights in Hungarian accommodation, 5.5% more than last year.

According to VisitHungary's overall tourism figures, Budapest and inbound tourism were the biggest pullers this year. While visitor arrivals were up by nearly 11% nationally and 22.1% in Budapest by the end of August. Moreover, foreign tourists in the capital outperformed the previous year with a 23% increase.