The Changes in the Demographic Characteristics and Spatial Structure of Tourism Demand in the West Balaton Region’s Spa Cities

László Könnyid, Zsuzsanna Váradi (), Zsombor Nagy, Noémi Ilyés and Orsolya H. Horváth
Additional contact information
László Könnyid: Hungarian Tourism Agency, 1027 Budapest, Hungary
Zsuzsanna Váradi: Hungarian Tourism Agency, 1027 Budapest, Hungary
Zsombor Nagy: Faculty of Economic Sciences, Corvinus University of Budapest, 1093 Budapest, Hungary
Noémi Ilyés: Hungarian Tourism Association Foundation, 1027 Budapest, Hungary
Orsolya H. Horváth: Promo Zone Trend Ltd., 8380 Hévíz, Hungary

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 17, 1-14

Abstract: The last two years, the period of the pandemic, have brought a significant change in the tourism of Hungary, which has been developing unbroken until then. The year 2019 broke all the peaks that were interrupted by the pandemic. This particularly affected our spa towns of international significance, including the examined settlements, Hévíz and Zalakaros. The aim of the study is to show what changes have taken place in the development of the number of visitors in the cities that have been based mainly on foreign traffic until then, what territorial reorganization has taken place in terms of sending areas, and what new target groups with modified attitude have emerged. In this study, we analyzed in detail the databases of the National Tourist Data Center, which has been operating since July 2019, and the monthly database of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office. The special, so-called unconventional tourism is carried out on the one hand by the methodology of statistical data collection and on the other hand by the explored tourism behavior. According to our results, it is clear that due to the domestic traffic, a completely new target group (age group and status) appeared in the two spa towns, their sending areas affected the metropolitan suburban zones, and the target group was high-status, younger guests. In our opinion, this offers a new opportunity for spa towns to generate more sustainable, future-oriented guests with a focus on local values, creating a new supply structure and image, as well as messages.

Keywords: medical tourism; Hungary; postcovid; change of tourism supply; sustainable way; change of visitor flow (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/17/10531/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/17/10531/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:17:p:10531-:d:896022

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().