Hungarian spas face significant difficulties due to high prices

Hungarian Spa Association’s representatives have recently declared that high prices might affect as much as half of the country’s wellness resorts. Especially now, since summer is over and the number of customers is declining, so owners might have no choice other than close their businesses until the next season.

As if the last two years of pandemic and restrictions were not enough for the struggling tourism industry, the war in Ukraine also contributed to the already considerable crisis, due to skyrocketing energy prices affecting everybody in the sector, spas included.

“People from countries east of Hungary are frequent visitors of our spas, and in the last months, the number of guests has decreased by 20-50 percent compared to expectations”, commented Zoltán Kántás, president of the Hungarian Spa Association.

“One-third or half of the spas will be forced to close until the first half of the next year. Some places are in an easier situation while others have it harder: it helps to maintain operation if they have a fixed contract for their gas and electricity for the next year or are mostly independent of gas. However, it is high time to modernise most of the buildings’ energy efficiency”, he added.

Some facilities are more affected than others, yet it is expected for all businesses to struggle in the near future. The most affected spa resorts are: Hévíz, Bük, Sárvár, Debrecen, Hajdúszoboszló, Nyíregyháza, Harkány and Gyula.

As part of Hungary tourism industry comes from spa visitors, analysts believe that the current crisis will take its toll on the tourism sector revenues.

 

Source: dailynewshungary.com