BUDAPEST, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- Hungary wishes to attract more and more tourists, especially from China, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Peter Szijjarto, on Wednesday told the Hungarian news agency MTI.
"Tourism is becoming more and more important in the production of Hungary's gross domestic product (GDP), which is why the country has an economic interest to continuously increase its tourist turnover," Szijjarto said in an interview given to MTI on Wednesday.
"It would be ideal if this growth could be achieved primarily from those countries where tourists are spending," Szijjarto explained, noting that Chinese tourists are among the best spending tourists of the world.
According to Szijjarto, it is a very good news that Chinese tourists in Hungary is dynamically expanding.
Last year, 227,000 Chinese tourists arrived in Hungary, 34 percent more than a year earlier. In the first half of this year, there were 140,000 Chinese tourists in Hungary, registering an additional 11 percent increase, he underlined.
He explained that the increase was also due to the fact that China's national tourism agency has installed its Central European regional center in Budapest.
"In order to further increase China's tourist traffic to Hungary, our foreign delegations can now receive visa applications in China in 14 different cities and issue travel permits in Hungary within 48 hours," he stressed.
It is also of the utmost importance that the transport connections between the two countries be constantly expanding, as this is one of the basic conditions for the growth of tourism, according to Szijjarto.
He announced that next to the Budapest-Beijing direct flight, another aviation corridor would be soon set up between Shanghai and Budapest.
He said it was also important that Chinese tourists to Hungary target not only Budapest, but also the area of the lake Balaton. "The wine regions and thermal baths should be also included among the destinations of Chinese tourists," he concluded.
