We have no intention of repeating what the infographics reveal, but we cannot refrain from pointing out that 10 years ago the number of international guests staying by Lake Balaton was almost the same as the number of Hungarian guests there. Today, the ratio bends clearly towards Hungarians, simply because twice as many of them visit the region as 10 years before:
- 2003: 567,614 Hungarians guests
- 2013: 1,045,638 Hungarian guests
The significant change in the ratio is also owing to the fact that between 2003 and 2013 the Balaton lost somewhat more than 100,000 international guests:
- 2003: 488,996 international guests
- 2013: 360,828 international guests
The good news is: in the last few years, the improving tendency of accommodations around Lake Balaton continued (if only slightly) this year as well. Comparing the same period of January to August, more people stayed at paying accommodations by Lake Balaton in 2014 than a year before. This goes for everyone, both Hungarians and foreigners.
Siófok, the most popular
The gold medal would not be surprising, if it was about the charms of the Restaurant of Life in Siófok, but the only raw vegan restaurant of Lake Balaton opened only in August. Füred's silver is well-deserved, and the third place of Hévíz, the town that seems to have taken Russian up as second language, is textbook example. It seems that Zalakaros has become the Hévíz of Hungarians; and judging by the numbers Zamárdi has been satisfied by snatching away two of the major festivals. It is possible that Zánka made it to the top 10 on the back of childhood memories of pioneers' summer camps and current state-funded youth holidays – no wonder that the international guests could not quite come to terms with such experiences. We sorely miss Badacsony and Tihany from the list, along with the south-western part of the Balaton.
Where do you find the Grand Balaton?
Although the area is devoid of accommodations reminding of the Grand Balaton Hotel or any other Wes Anderson movie for that matter, hotels have still prevailed in the race of accommodations in 2014. There were twice as many people staying at camping sites than in bungalows, and the hostels on their own right are moving up faster than the first person in the M People hit.
To discuss whether or not the "Zimmer frei" fever was still raging made as much sense as discussing whether that wall was still standing in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. German tourists, however, are still aplenty by Lake Balaton: over 72,000 Germans stayed by the lake, which is about twice the number of Austrians (37,000), who visited. The news of Russian guests flooding Hévíz is not an urban legend: out of the 28,000 Russians visiting the Balaton, nearly 18,000 landed in the Zala County region. It would be an overstatement to say that West Europeans are crazy for the Hungarian Sea: we suspect that the Dutch (14,425 guests) and the Belgians (9,572 guests) are attracted primarily by Balaton Sound and Zamárdi, as opposed to the study trails of the north shore.
When neighbours visit
Looking around among Hungary's neighbours, you can see that Austria towers far above the others in terms of Balaton holidays while Slovakia also sends masses of guests. Summer holidays are probably not the number one concern of Ukrainian families right now; it is, however, surprising, that about four times as many guests arrive from Slovakia as from the other EU member, Romania. There is no denying that only a few visitors arrive from former members of Yugoslavia: Croatia, of course, has its own seaside; Serbian economy is not about to burst from the dollar millions; but it is hard to comprehend that there are more people visiting Lake Balaton from Denmark than from the neighbouring Slovenia.
The Scandinavian visitors stay longer: once they travel cca. 1,200 km, they usually spend at least a week by the lake, while our Slovenian friends spend 2 days on average there. We would spare you the enumeration of all countries involved, but it has to be said that Germans are yet again among the top, and the Swiss make it a point not to stay a day longer than 5. The list includes visitors that are probably just passing through Hungary (USA, Japan, China), and it also turns out that the average Hungarian spends only a long weekend by Lake Balaton - but let us not forget that these numbers refer to paying guests, not those who sleep in their own summer house.
