Hungary as a tourist product: theoretical and promotional issues

The Hungarian National Tourist Office (HNTO) is the organization with national competence for the promotion and marketing of domestic and inbound tourism and it is a share company sole owned by the Ministry of Economy and Transport. It was established on 1st March 1994.

The main goal of the activity HNTO is to contribute in positioning Hungarian tourist products in the market and thereby to lead to an increase in revenue from domestic and foreign tourism. Through its operations, HNTO helps creating and sustaining new jobs, supports the national economy, contributes to a balanced growth of the GDP and has a positive influence on the country’s current balance of payments (as illustrated in paragraph 1.5).

In order to realise this objectives, HNTO has the following tasks to carry out:

* To raise the profile of Hungary as a tourist destination and improve its image abroad and among the domestic population;

* To uphold the principles of sustainable development by contributing to the care of the natural environment, man-made attractions and Hungarian culture and traditions;

* To assist, in a competitively neutral way, market access in Hungary and abroad for domestic tourist products and to subsidise the further development of distribution channels;

* To stimulate an improvement in the level of tourist services;

* To provide market information for the tourist professionals on decisions regarding product development and on visitor satisfaction;

* To establish, develop and maintain professional partnerships, both in Hungary and abroad;

* To support the establishment and the development of cooperation between minor regions in the area of tourist marketing;

* To conduct promotional and PR activities in Hungary and abroad;

* To ensure the provision of tourist information to domestic tourists and foreign visitors, to potential travellers, to those involved in decision-making and in tourist businesses both in Hungary and abroad;

* To carry out researches on a broad front in order to facilitate the high-level decision making processes and the selection of the right marketing tools to be implemented on each source market.

The activities of HNTO will be the core theme of chapter 3, whereas the specific efforts on source markets will be analyzed in chapter 4 referring to Italy.