Health, Wellness and Tourism: healthy tourists, healthy business ...

Measurement of the Economic Impacts of Health Tourism Development in
Hungary
Margit Mundruczó
College for Modern Business Studies
Hungary
mundruczo.gyorgyne@mutf.hu
Introduction
Nowadays the health tourism is one of the most dynamic sub-sector of tourism. There are
many reasons for this both on demand and on supply side. The key demand drivers of tourism
are variables such as wellness, beauty, harmony of body and soul, and recently the growing
needs for medical tourism. These demand trends have pushed the owners of traditional
thermal bath and spa hotels to start the development tourism services and facilities based on
the thermal water sources.
There are two major financial support sources of Hungarian health tourism development:
1. Government funding – Széchenyi Development Program (replaced by the New
Hungary Development Plan since 2007). In 2001 the Hungarian Government
established the Széchenyi Tourism Development Program with 115M Euro (31bn
HUF, 1 euro = 270 HUF) to support spa and wellness/medical hotel development. The
objective of the development program was to utilize the tourist development multiplier
effect and level out the regional development differences between tourism
destinations.
2. EU funding. In 2004 Hungary has joined the EU and established the National
Development Program (NDP) to define the national development objectives and
establish supporting financial funding to development project aligned with those
objectives. A major component of this program is the funding of health tourism
developments.
In the first phase of the National Development Program (NDP1 - 2004-2006) 2,7% of all EU
financial support (113M Euro = 30,5bn HUF) was dedicated to the tourism related programs.
The 2 nd phase of the plan (NDP2 – 2007-2013) provides 4% of all EU funding to the tourism
related program, part of which is health tourism program. In 2007-2008, 270M Euro (73bn
HUF) were awarded to 278 projects. The major objective of EU support was to improve lower
developed regions through attraction and accommodation development. (ÖTM, 2008)
In order to monitor the development projects objectives and results achieved, the government
monitoring system provides few simple tourism performance indicators. (MTA-RKK, Raffay
et al) However the noted volume of tourism funding and the nature of tourism developments
require more complex measurement of the economic impacts.
The author of this article has first conducted an economic impact research study in 2004
focusing on 11 Széchenyi Program projects in 11 cities to examine the local economic
impacts of health tourism development (Munduczó et al, 2005).
Later in 2009, on request of the Research Institute of the State Audit Office, Hungary the
author conducted a detailed study of the economic impact of 10 tourism related projects (4
spas, 4 wellness hotels and 2 cultural and natural attractions) in 7 cities. This study is
currently being finalized.