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Bridges over borders: examining the success factors and spatial dynamics of tourism-themed cross-border projects in Hungary
52-62Views:11Tourism serves as the primary engine for cross-border integration within EU Cohesion Policy, representing the most dominant thematic objective in Interreg, IPA, and ENI frameworks. Analysis of the keep.eu dataset reveals that while 247 programmes have supported over 4,700 tourism projects, the sector is intrinsically linked to cultural heritage and education as “soft-power” tools for territorial cohesion. Hungary ranks in the top decile for project participation with 440 initiatives, yet a moderate partnership-to-project ratio indicates a strategic preference for bilateral cooperation over complex multilateral networks. Spatial distribution shows significant clustering along the Serbian, Romanian, and Croatian borders, whereas regional strategic priorities in other areas often emphasize cultural heritage, education and institutional cooperation over direct tourism development. The “Route of Medieval Churches” case study validates that successful integration depends on moving beyond fragmented restoration toward “sellable” tourism products through bilingualism and digital innovation. Effective cross-border cooperation requires a five-dimensional synergy where integrated marketing and strategic branding outweigh standalone infrastructural investments. For the 2021–2027 budgetary cycle, shifting focus from physical assets to cohesive destination identity is essential for long-term sustainability and regional competitiveness.
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The Formation of Social and Economic Peripheries in Hungary after the Change of Regime
179-187Views:358The Hungarian industrial revolution started in the second half of the 19th century, which caused the revaluation of the geographical peripheries in Hungary. After the Trianon Treaty the rural areas of Hungary lost their foreign markets and became the "country of three million beggars". The socialist industrialization of the systems of Rákosi and Kádár absorbed the surplus of rural labour, but the industrialization meant the redistributive exploitation of the agricultural areas and the further impoverishment. After the political transition in 1989, the rural Hungary could not be the "pantry of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance", and the final crisis of the Hungarian agricultural sales finalized the deformation of the three-quarters of Hungary, the major part of the rural areas in Hungary. In the recent decades the brain drain worked in the Hungarian peripheries, the disinvestment and the pauperization increased. The emerging of the new latifundia and the monoculture commodity production operate independently, separated from the Hungarian rural people in the sense of ownerships and production. As the result of these negative processes, significant part of the society in the peripheral areas declassed. In this hopeless situation awareness only a conscious regional policy and above all, a very well-considered education is only able to offer a chance for break.