Strategic cooperation to promote the garden heritage
The short-term goal of the parties is to create the Hungarian Historic Garden Routes, to display them on printed and mobile app maps, and to complement the services available there.
The Hungarian Tourism Agency and the Hungarian Garden Heritage Foundation have signed a strategic cooperation agreement to mutually support their marketing communication, the development of a Hungarian garden heritage rating system and the promotion of garden heritage sites as tourist attractions in Hungary and abroad.
Zoltán Guller, director general of the Hungarian Tourism Agency, stressed that there is a growing demand for quality programs linked to cultural tourism, offering a close-to-nature experience. He said that it is important that the service quality of domestic outdoor tourism products reaches the level of Western Europe, which requires effective cooperation between tourism operators.
Ágnes Herczeg, president of the Hungarian Historical Garden Routes, said that the Foundation has wide scientific contacts in Hungary and extensive professional contacts abroad. Its aim is to give garden heritage in Hungary its rightful place, and garden tourism has an essential role to play in its preservation and development.
According to the communication, there are almost 2,000 gardens in Hungary with significant natural, monumental and architectural values, which represent a great potential for tourism.
Garden tourism has now become a tourist product. According to a recent survey, 93 percent of trips to historic gardens and arboretums are linked to an additional program.
Of the 175 most important tourist attractions in Hungary, the most visited parks, which are also important from a garden tourism point of view, are the Royal Castle in Gödöllő, the Festetics Castle in Keszthely, and the Almásy Castle Visitor Center in Gyula. These three attracted more than 762,000 visitors last summer, 96 percent of whom were domestic visitors.
