An analysis published by the Hungarian hotels and restaurants association revealed that Hungary’s tourism boom continued to grow without any restraint as the gross income received by the hotels in Hungary during the first seven months of 2015 amounted to a whopping HUF 179.13 billion, an increase of 11.2 percent from the revenues recorded for the same period in the previous year.
According to the report, the popularity of Budapest, the capital city of the country, continued to increase, but tourism to the Lake Balaton area, the other tourist hotspot in the country, registered a slight decline. Whereas the increase in the number of tourist nights recorded across the country was 6.6 percent, the growth rate in Budapest stood at 8 percent, much above the national average. On the other hand, the number of tourist nights at the Lake Balaton area dropped by as much as 2.9 percent.
The report attributed the poor tourism performance of the Balaton region during the seven month period from January 2015 to July 2015 to a 10.4 percent leading to a decline in the number of guests booking rooms for staying in the hotels in Hvz. This in turn was because of a drastic decline in demand from the tourists from the Ukrainian and Russian regions. In the period from January to July 2015, the Balaton hotels registered gross revenues of HUF 15.9 billion, without taking into consideration the contribution from the spa town in Hvz, which showed an increase of 7.2 percent from the revenues for the same period in the previous year.
During the period of analysis, Hungarian hotels registered unusual growth from UK (+25.1%), U.S. (+15.4%), Italian (+10.6%), Czech (+8.2%) and French (+7.2%) markets. Considerable growth was also recorded in the number of guest nights spent by visitors from the neighboring countries of Slovakia, Serbia and Croatia (+ 13%, +6.7% and +4.3% respectively).
However, the number of tourist nights spent by travelers from Germany continued to fall. The number of guest nights from the traditionally biggest contributor to the hospitality industry in Hungary fell by more than 3.8 percent over the first seven months of this year.