A Brief Description of the developmental trends of Hungarian sports tourism
- General development of tourism attractions: products and services, built on local attractions. It is important that all the attractions of a region appear simultaneously in the market. E.gl. water sports services – bicycle paths – ports, railway stations – sights – catering establishments.
- Active sports tourism can only be successful if its offers are not overstructured or business-like offers, but, instead, pleasurable and playful pastimes are needed which give people an opportunity for self- fulfilment. (Yannakis, O. 2012).
- International riding trails and bicycle paths need to be built together with related sevices and check points.
- It is inevitable to improve the conditions for receiving sports tourists. Locally it is of utmost importance to provide sports tourists with high quality accomodation, and to combine several services. (E. g. special accomodation, offering possibilities for horseback riding, or cycling.) At regional level it is important to combine sports tourism with other branches of tourism, including business tourism, professional tourism, and rural tourism. At regional level it is inevitable to reduce territorial concentration, since the most important target areas are those which are distant from the country’s central regions. (!).
- Accomodation and catering establishments need to be enabled to offer sports tourism-friendly services, including the building of bicycle storage rooms, and introducing laundry and drying services.
- An emphasis need to be laid on communication and the marketing of sports tourism products, both in Hungary and abroad.
- Links need to be established between regional and local sports tourism organizations, non-profit organizations and non-governmental organizations in order to come up with the proper programmes and information on them.
- It is inevitable to offer sports tourism specialists proper specialized higher education and training progarmmes.