Sziget Festival Boosts Tourism: Guest Nights Up by 10 Percent

In Budapest, nine out of ten guests were foreigners at the Sziget Festival, with the largest number coming from the Netherlands, followed by Italians, British, Germans and Spaniards. Of those visiting Budapest from the countryside at the time, the majority came from Debrecen (eastern Hungary), Miskolc (northern Hungary), Szeged (southern Hungary), Pécs (southwestern Hungary) and Nyíregyháza (northeastern Hungary), writes Világgazdaság.

Sziget Festival had 10 percent more guest and guest nights compared to last year, with around 178,000 guests and 336,000 guest nights recorded in the period from August 7 to 12.

Around 20 percent more, 160,000 foreigners arrived in Budapest during the festival,

according to the National Tourism Data Supply Center.

The economic and tourism returns of the event are even more visible compared to the same period the week before Sziget Festival:

the number of overnight stays in the capital exceeded the previous week’s figures by a quarter, while hotel revenues were more than a third higher.

During the biggest music festival of the summer in Hungary, foreign travelers came from the Netherlands, followed by Italy, the UK, Germany and Spain. Nearly 10 percent of the tourists staying in the capital during the event were from the Netherlands. Nearly 10 percent of the tourists staying in Budapest came from within the country, of which around 14 percent were from the capital. Following them, the largest numbers of visitors came from Debrecen, Miskolc, Szeged, Pécs and Nyíregyháza.

Sziget Festival also had a “rejuvenating” effect on the city’s guest population:

• 59 percent of tourists staying in Budapest during the festival were under 34 years old,
• the most popular age group was 25-34 year olds, with 29 percent of the visitors aged between 25 and 34,
• 20 percent were aged 19-24,
• 10 percent were young people under 18.

Accommodation providers in the 3rd District of the capital, hosting the event, recorded 18 times as many international guest nights as a week earlier, and the number of nights in the district was up by 2 percent compared to last year’s festival.

As a result of the increased interest, also due to Sziget Festival, the revenues of the capital’s hotels have also been exceptional:

they amounted to HUF 7.9 billion (EUR 20 million) in Budapest, 37 percent more than in the same period of the previous week.

The data show that the most visited attractions in the capital between August 7 and 12 were

• the Parliament area,
• Margaret Island,
• St Stephen’s Basilica,
• the area around Széchenyi Thermal Bath,
• and the Great Market Hall and its surroundings.

Via Világgazdaság; Featured image via Facebook/Sziget Festival Official