July Festivals Invigorated Domestic Tourism

A three-fold increase in the number of guests and guest nights due to the Balaton Sound, a significant increase in accommodation revenues during the Campus festival and EFOTT, or a week that produces 93% of the total monthly guest traffic thanks to the Valley of the Arts; domestic 'festival settlements' show outstanding tourism results. This year, the big summer music and dance events attracted thousands of visitors, which significantly boosted the local economy. The biggest winners of the multi-day events so far have been the accommodations of Gárdony, Debrecen, Kapolcs and Zamárdi, the Hungarian Tourism Agency (MTÜ) announced.

According to MTÜ, the 2024 festival season opened early July by Balaton Sound, which was also hosted by Zamárdi this year. Based on the data of the National Tourist Information Center (NTAK), more than 12,000 guests spent 22,000 nights in the accommodation facilities of the settlement during this time. With this, the number of guests increased by three and a half times, and the number of guest nights almost tripled compared to the same period of the week before the event.

Accommodation providers in Gárdony, Velencé, Sukoró, Pákozd and Kápolnásnyék also experienced growth between July 10 and 14. During the EFOTT festival, which was originally started as the National Tourism Meeting of University Students and College Students, around 3,600 guests spent the night in the settlements' accommodations. As a result, the outstanding high-season occupancy continued to grow: compared to the previous week, the number of guests increased by more than 10% and the number of guest nights in the settlements increased by 20%. One of the main winners of the festival is Kápolnásnyék, where during EFOTT the number of guests more than doubled, while the number of nights spent by them increased by 143% compared to the previous week, at the same time, the number of guest nights in Sukoró and Gárdony increased by more than 60% during the festival, compared to the previous week.

A similar effect was produced by the Valley of the Arts, which took place July 19-28 between Kapolcs, Taliándörögd and Vigántpetend. According to the NTAK data, the popularity of Kapolcs has soared: the three settlements hosting the event received a total of more than 2,000 guests. Of the approximately 8,000 nights they spent, more than 6,000 were registered by Kapolcs accommodations. 93% of the settlement's total visitor traffic in July thus occurred during the festival.

Compared to the previous week, a quarter more guests came to Debrecen for the Campus festival July 24-28. The 8,000 guests spent 15,000 guest nights in the city. The number of domestic visitors exceeded the previous week by 66%, and the number of nights spent by them by 34%.

Festivals at local accommodation also contributed significantly to the increase in income. During Balaton Sound, the income of accommodation in Zamárdi increased more than four times compared to the same period of the week before the festival. In Kapolcs, Taliándörögd, and Vigántpetend, accommodation revenues increased by more than 70% during the Valley of the Arts compared to the period before the festival. Accommodation revenues in Debrecen also increased significantly during the Campus festival, and accommodation revenues in Sukoró, Velence, Gárdony, Kápolnásnyék and Pákozd also increased by 30% during EFOTT.

Thanks to the festivals, the distribution of guests by age group changes in many cases. In Zamárdi, under the Balaton Sound, there was a decrease of 23 percentage points in the proportion of people under 18 years of age, and a 34-percentage-point decrease in the proportion of people over 35 years of age, while the proportion of people between the ages of 19-24 was 27 percentage points and the proportion of people between the ages of 25-34 was 29 percentage points higher than a week earlier. As a result of EFOTT, the proportion of 19-24 and 25-34 age groups among hotel guests in the settlements around Lake Velence also increased, by 8 and 6 percentage points, respectively.

Among the types of accommodation at the festival sites, hotels, private and other accommodation, and campsites proved to be the most popular. In Zamárdi, more than 50% of guest nights were registered in campsites, that is, 20% more people stayed here than between June 26 and 29, while 40% of guests preferred private and other accommodations. In Gárdony, Velencé, Sukoró, Pákozd and Kápolnásnyék, more than a third of guest nights were registered in private and other accommodations during the EFOTT, thus their number increased by about half during the festival compared to the same period of the previous week.