Tourism is one of Hungary’s engines of economic growth, a sector showing a steady increase between 2010 and 2014, the head of the Hungarian Tourism company said.

The number of tourists arriving from other European countries went up by 29% during the period, Péter Faragó said. Within Europe, the number of tourists arriving from Slovakia went up by 80%, and from Britain and Poland by 50% both. The number of tourists coming from Asia increased by 60% and from America by 56%. In the first half of 2015, the number of all foreign tourists visiting Hungary went up by 17.5%, which was four times the global average.

In the first ten months of the year, the number of guests and the number of guest nights spent in commercial accommodation went up by an annual 8% and 6%, respectively. Foreign tourists in Budapest alone spent around 6.7 million guest nights between January and October, 8.8% more than during the same period in 2014. Based on these figures, the tourism sector is expected to post record numbers this year as well, Faragó said.

via hungarymatters.hu and MTI