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

We present the direct tax revenues (excl. VAT) of health tourism projects based on the 2009
research data:
• Research data shows that local tax revenues of the examined projects depend on the
projects’ specifics and their ownership. Most thermal bath and aqua parks in Hungary
are city government owned, thus during the first years of operation they are usually
exempt from local taxes. However later this local operational tax is a large
• On average, about 20% of the net revenue of health tourism project are paid as a direct
taxes. (The 2004 study showed the same data.) Based on the studied projects, 5-10%
of thermal bath and aqua park revenues and 12-25% of hotel revenues are paid to the
local governments.
• The amount of local tax revenues of particularly small city governments, are greatly
influenced by the examined tourism facilities. The examined 4 new wellness hotels
generated 110M Euro (30bn HUF) local tax for the city governments. The local tax
paid by the examined thermal bath and aqua parks (with the same investment value)
was only 55% of the wellness hotels’ local taxes.
The impacts of health tourism development on the local economy
Health tourism development has significant impacts the local economy both directly and
indirectly. Direct impact includes local tax revenues and job creation; indirect effects are the
multiplier effect of the investment, the development of the city as a tourism destination and
the associated increased visits of tourist. Further direct effects are increased local tax revenues
and increased scope of activity and prosperity of local businesses. Below, through the results
of the 2009 study, we will show you these direct effects in three different size cities in
different regions of the country. These cities are:
• Debrecen (located in North Hungary), population of 206,000, new aqua park
development (2003)
• Szentgotthárd (located in West Hungary), population of 9,000, new thermal bath and
aqua park development (2007)
• Tiszafüred (located in Lake Tisza region), population of 11,000, new wellness hotel
development (2007)
Accommodation capacity and demand volume
As it was mentioned earlier the accommodation capacity and the number tourist arrivals at
commercial accommodation expresses the size tourism at the visited destination. Below we
illustrate the impact of health tourism development in three examined cities, namely:
Debrecen, Szentgotthárd and Tiszafüred.
Total number of available beds Total number of tourist nights spent
(accommodation supply side)
(accommodation demand side)
Debrecen. In early 2000 the commercial accommodation capacity stagnated in Debrecen. Due
to the higher level of quality accommodation development, the number of hotel rooms
increased but it did not translate to a bed capacity increase. Partly as a result of the
introduction of the aqua park, hotel utilization increased until 2006. Hotels provide 2/3 of total
commercial accommodation nights. Since 2006, accommodation utilization slightly declined
due to a decrease in foreign tourist. This trend fits with the experience in Hajdú-Bihar County
where Debrecen is located. Both the capacity and quality of commercial accommodation
satisfies the need, which explains the low number of bed & breakfast accommodation.