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Tourism and sustainability in Hungary
135-143Views:80Sustainable development is a very popular conception since many years. In practice there could be many difficulties.
Economic, social and ecological systems are too complex to see all the consequences clearly. After all, sustainable criteria are indispensable for responsible planning.
Tourism is one of the world’s dynamically developing economic sectors. But according to this development, we have to confront with a lot of negative effects, like air pollution, or mass. With globalization, the opportunities for tourism increase: thanks to modern transport, places which were too far to be accessible before are now able to be reached. But there are consequences to this expansion. Unfortunately, growth e.g. in air transport causes considerable environmental damage.
In today’s fast-paced world, the sanctity of nature, a soundproof environment, clean air and rural life have become increasingly important. With the growth of demand and tourism globalized, these values can damage or disappear in a short time. So, in tourism, it is vital to project development plans with sustainable principles.
Just as other countries, in Hungary, the development of sustainable tourism is slowly becoming a priority. Fortunately, in plans for the next few years, there appear more concrete ideas on ways to make sustainable tourism grow.
In my study, I assess Hungary’s position in sustainable tourism, examining how sustainable tourism indicators fit in sustainable development indicators and how can we measure aims of sustainable tourism. -
Comparative analysis in residential property price level and price dynamics in urban and rural areas of Hajdú-Bihar County
85-90Views:113In modern market economies residential real estate prices, price shifts and their correlations with macroeconomic factors are surveyed quite frequently. However, in contrast with the wide scope of foreign examples, so far existing analyses in Hungary have ignored examining relation and extensity of macroeconomic indicators and failed to examine their effect on real estate pricing. The scope of this survey is to highlight these potential correlations and thus develop new aspects of analysis. Although the examination needs further extension both in time and space, the results of this survey may help to understand the importance of the responsible management of the most precious element of national wealth from the perspective of sustainable rural development.
Based on my preliminary results, there exists a strong correlation between the number of inhabitants of a settlement and the average real estate prices. Nevertheless, the correlation seems to be significant only for cities. In the case of smaller settlements the correlation still exists but at a lower level. As opposed to the results of former publications and my own expectations, no direct link could be tackled between the amount of income tax paid by private individuals and real estate prices either in the cities or in the villages within the territory and time span examined in my analysis. Although this correlation is measurable on a macro-economic level, my micro-regional analyses revealed the complexity of asset pricing and price volatility. Continuing this survey, my goal is to identify the hidden factors influencing real estate prices, whose thorough mapping may promote conscious rural development.
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Towards a new national sustainable development strategy – findings of in-depth interviews
39-46Views:105Hungary’s new national sustainable development strategy is expected to be drawn up by 2012 and social debate for discussion has already been under way. This document provides the basis of all other strategies, programs and plans. I prepared a survey by the method of structured in-depth interviews to explore the opinion of experts engaged in environmental issues and strategy development about sustainable development, the situation of the Hungarian strategy adopted in 2007 and applied indicators. The picture is highly diverse: there is a lack of unified viewpoint even about the concept of sustainability. However, the definition of a common, jointly adopted concept is the first stage in strategy development. Precisely formulated objectives and their related indicators are required for a strategy to fulfill its role – this is the theoretical part of strategic thinking.
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The Assessment of Sustainable Tourism
414-421Views:121Tourism as one of the most significant sectors of the world economy plays an important role in achieving the goals of sustainable development. The fundamental conditions of sustainable development are the proper management of the environmental, social and economic impacts, as well as the well-established planning based on a detailed analysis. Measuring the changes and evaluating the results are tasks carried out by governmental and professional organizations. The first step of the assessment is defining the concept of sustainable tourism. Indicators are the most widely used set of tools for the assessment. Several international organizations have focused on elaborating the most suitable indicators for sustainable tourism development and formulating assessment models based on indicators since the beginning of the 1990s. Neither a generally accepted set of indicators nor a universally applicable assessment method has been put together until now. In the present study a few definitions of sustainable tourism are reviewed, criteria for indicator selection are listed, followed by the presentation of a sustainable tourism model. Finally a recently published assessment procedure based on the Bellagio Principles is summarized.