Hungary Experiences Large Influx of Tourists Due to World Athletics Championships & Sziget Festival
This year around 420,000 participants took part in the Sziget Festival in Hungary, the organiser of the festival has revealed, pointing out that the number fell short of last year’s figures by over 30,000.
According to About Hungary, a website managed by the Hungarian Prime Minister’s international communication office, the crowd of 450,000 that attended last year’s event was a result of increased demand for the festival following the pandemic, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
“The two-year hiatus generated huge excitement in Europe for entertainment, so when people could go partying again in 2022, masses of people showed up everywhere,” he noted.
According to him, last year’s Sziget Festival attracted people who had bought their tickets at the end of 2019, enduring a nearly three-year wait, but they were still present.
Additionally, Kádár has not been able to confirm whether the event has made a profit, citing that overall revenue will depend on various additional factors, including food profits.
He also mentioned that this year’s festival didn’t have any sold-out days, although Friday with Imagine Dragons and Tuesday with Billie Eilish came close. He further stated that every day the event featured at least one internationally known artist as headliner.
Kádár added that Sziget had been in negotiations since 2018 to secure Billie Eilish for the festival. Heading into next year’s event, he explained that organisers aimed to increase sales of full festival passes over individual day tickets.
In addition to the festival, during the period from August 19 to 27, Hungary will also host the world athletics championship in its capital. In this regard, statistics from the Hungarian Tourism Agency (MTÜ) show that accommodation establishments providing to tourists in Budapest have already accumulated around 340,000 bookings for guest nights that include these specific dates.
Based on the data provided by the National Tourism Data Service Center (NTAK), they also found that over 70 per cent of the bookings were made by international visitors, mainly originating from Germany, Israel, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, and countries such as Argentina, Australia, the United States, India, Canada and China.
“The majority of both foreign and Hungarian guests booked accommodation at four or five-star hotels,” About Hungary notes.
The global reach of the event, with competitors and fans spreading the word about Hungary, is expected to attract an audience of approximately one billion viewers via telecasts.
MTÜ General Director Péter Horváth emphasised the invaluable impact of this exposure on the tourism sector. At the same time, the CEO of the company that oversees the organisation of the championship, Balázs Németh, predicts that over 50,000 foreign visitors will travel specifically to Budapest to see the competitions up close.
Data show that in 2022, over 46 million tourist trips were taken to Hungary, approximately 13 million of which were overnight trips. The main nationalities that visit Hungary are Slovaks and who accounted for 9.2 and 7.5 million tourist arrivals in 2022, respectively.
