Data published earlier today by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH) regarding the tourism traffic at accommodation establishments in the month of February show a marked growth of 10-20 percent compared to the previous year, which was also a year of record high expansion. Although tourism traffic is typically low in January and February, the increase of tourism nights and revenues at accommodations give room for optimism as far as this year is concerned.

In the initial two months of the year, 934 thousand guests spent 2.2 tourism nights at accommodation establishments which constitute growth of 14.2 percent and 12 percent, respectively, in comparison to the corresponding period of 2013. Revenue growth at accommodations was even more dynamic with 17.6 percent, within which category revenues from domestic guests increased by some 20 percent. Thus, the trend in place since last year is continuing: tourism traffic growth of domestic guests exceeds that of foreigners.

As far as countries of origin are concerned, last year’s trend continued. The slight decline of arrivals from Germany and Austria as well as the skyrocketing number of arrivals from Russia resulted in an overall dynamic growth of more than 10 percent. At accommodation establishments, the number of tourism nights by Russian guests soared by 41.9 percent in February and by 36.2 percent in the period January-February. Among the most significant source countries, the largest increase in the number of tourism nights, 20.5 percent, was registered with regard to the Czech Republic. The number of tourism nights also increased, albeit to a lesser extent, for Italy (11.6 percent), Romania (7.8 percent) and Poland (7.1 percent).

In addition to the marked growth of the domestic tourism sector, the other positive development last year was the improvement of certain profitability indicators. Following a negative trend prevalent over the past six years, in this period both revenues per avaialable room (RevPAR) and average room prices exceeded those recorded in the last pre-crisis year of 2007.

Data from these two months give reason for cautious but well-founded optimism that the improvement of these profitability indicators is signalling the beginning of a trend instead of a temporary phenomenon. In January-February 2014, gross RevPAR was HUF 5 528, which amount is 15.1 percent higher than in the same period of last year and up by 13.4 percent compared to 2007.

The average gross price of a hotel room was HUF 14 719 in this period, an increase of 7.4 percent year-on year and 11.2 percent compared to 2007.

(Ministry for National Economy)