This year, tour operators have drastically
increased the volume of sales for therapeutic or medical tours to Hungary –
nearly one fourth more than last year’s indicators. The affordable prices and quality service
have contributed to the increase in the depth of sales, which today goes on for
about 2 months. So tour operators in charge of this direction consider this a
great start to the season.
“Judging by the price of medical services, Hungary remains one of the most democratic
countries in Europe. This attracts tourists,
who wish to relax and recover at the local therapeutic hot springs. A week at a three star hotel
with healing spa procedures included will set you back only 600 euro. Something
similar with the same price/quality relationship can only be offered in the
Pribaltic”- says the director of the European department of the “Vedi Tour
Group” company, Anna Panina. The most
popular Hungarian resort amongst Russians, according to Ms Panina, is Heviz Lake,
where about 80% of tourists traveling with this company chose to stay. In
second place, trailing far behind – Sarvar Resort.
“There is a high percentage of tourists
that return to the thermal water resorts, and ‘word of mouth’ works really well
in spreading the news around”. During this season, the sales of
therapeutic/healing tours have already risen 15%, the same can’t be said about
excursion type programs – they’re down around 7%, explains Ms Panina. According
to her opinion, the drop in interest towards excursions is mainly due to the
price of flight tickets to Budapest.
After the Hungarian airline company Malev stopped flights into the capital at
the beginning of this year, there was only one company left flying in that
direction – “Aeroflot”. As a result, the cost of a flight ticket to the
Hungarian capital has risen in around one third of last year’s price – from 250
euro to 350 both ways. “Because there is simply no cheaper alternative, and not
everyone wants to spend one and a half days on board a train, the flow of
excursion style tours has switched on to the Czech Republic, to where the
airfare is much cheaper.” -says Anna Panina.
“While Malev was still operating, a major
part of the tourism flow really did go through Budapest. These days we offer tourists who
are interested in a vacation on Hungary’s
Resorts a flight to Vienna.
It costs around 8000 rubes there and back. At the same time we’ve opened up the
option of creating combined tours, where tourists eagerly spend two or three
days in Austria’s capital” – explains the general director of the company
“Altses” Igor Chukanov. He also gives the start of the season a positive
evaluation. From the words of Mr Chukanov, the sales of therapeutic tours in
the company have gone up 25%. And because usually tours with this purpose are
planned well in advance, the depth of the sales already reaches into August.
The booking of excursion type tours has remained pretty much on the same level.
According to statistics from the bureau of
consulting of tourism in Hungary,
during the first four months of the current year, Russian tourists took up 3rd.
place amongst travellers from abroad, judging by the number of nights
they stay in Hungarian hotels (almost 183, 000) and first place judging by the
average length of stay – 4.3 days. From January until April, hotels in Hungary took in
more than 42, 000 Russians (up 43%).
All up, foreign tourists spent nearly 2.35
million nights in local hotels over the course of 4 months (up 11%), and the
total number of foreign guests surpassed 895 000 people (up 9.5%).
Russian tourists spent more than 30 000
nights in the hotels of Budapest
since the start of the year (up 37%), and 18 000 nights in hotels on the lake
Balaton (up 51%).
