August sees 3.0% increase in tourism nights

In August 2017, compared to the same month of the previous year, the number of international tourist arrivals grew by 3.5% and the number of nights spent by foreign tourists in commercial accommodation by 3.8% (to 2 million). The growth was 1.9% in Budapest, which saw half of all foreign tourism nights. Foreign tourists spent 10% more nights at Lake Balaton than in the same month of the previous year.

The number of domestic tourist arrivals increased by 1.9% in August, and nights spent in commercial accommodation by domestic tourists by 2.3% (to nearly 2.4 million). Except for the region of Lake Balaton, the number of domestic tourism nights increased in each tourism region.

Room occupancy in hotels increased by 1.6 percentage points to 73.8% in August. The prices of hotel rooms were 12% higher at the national level and 21% higher in Budapest than a year earlier.

As a result of the significant increase in prices of rooms and accommodation services, the revenues of accommodation establishments grew more dynamically than tourist arrivals. The total gross revenues of commercial accommodation establishments increased by 15% to HUF 56 billion; within this, accommodation fee revenues increased by 16% (to HUF 37 bln), catering revenues by 13% (to HUF 9 bln), and other revenues by 14% (to HUF 11 bln).

The amount of accommodation fee revenues from foreign visitors increased by 20%, while such revenues from domestic visitors rose by 12%. While foreign guests accounted for 46% of all tourism nights, they accounted for 55% of total accommodation revenues.

21 million nights in first eight months

In January–August 2017, compared to the corresponding eight-month period of last year, accommodation establishments registered 6.9% more, i.e. a total of 20.9 million tourism nights. International guests spent 8.9% more (10.3 mln) and domestic guests 5.1% more (10.6 mln) nights in commercial accommodation.

Room occupancy in hotels increased by 3.8 percentage points to 59.8% in the first eight months of 2017.

Accommodation establishments achieved gross revenues of HUF 310 bln in January–August, an increase of 17% year-on-year at current prices. Within this, accommodation fee revenues grew by 19% and exceeded HUF 188 bln.

As of August 31, 2017, there were a total of 3,375 commercial accommodation establishments in Hungary, almost the same as at the same date of the previous year. The total number of available rooms increased slightly and was close to 99,000.