CC BY
101 gricultural
Bulletin of Stavropol Regi
UDK 347.799.1(439)
Stavropol Region
= № 1(21)/1 Supplement, 2016
Melinda Jászberényi Ph.D, Katalin Ásványi Ph.D
THE IMAGE OF BUDAPEST BY AN INTERNATIONAL RIVER CRUISE COMPANY
Summary: The actuality of our study is that Budapest won the American poll of Porthole Cruise Magazine as Best River Cruise Port of the Editorin-Chief Award 2014, which gives the capital a very good possibility to have a better image.
An average of 110 cruise hotels comes to Budapest per year. Cruise tourists like to prolong their route a 3-4 day stay in Budapest, where they can
visit the varied tourist attractions of the city and its surroundings.
In the context of the study the cruise trips in the Danube are presented and analysed, and we get a picture about the image of Budapest as a preferred and increasingly popular tourist destination.
Key words: image, river cruise, Budapest.
Melinda Jászberényi - Katalin Ásványi -
Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of the Centre for Tourism, research assistant
Institute of Marketing and Media in the Faculty of Business Corvinus University of Budapest
Administration at Budapest Corvinus University Tel.: +361-482-5458
E-mail: jaszberenyi@uni-corvinus.hu E-mail: katalin.asvanyi@corvinus.hu
Introduction
The image of Budapest is influenced by a lot of marketing tools, local people and tourists. Cruise tourism is a special type of tourism which has a growing trend in the world and also in Budapest. That's why our main research question was how the cruise tourism and a river cruise company could influence the image of Budapest. We use document analysis. Our study we analysed the brochures of a cruise company to know what elements of tourist image were mentioned about Budapest. We assumed our results in a table to show that according to Mazanec (1994) tourist image elements, the functional ones are much stronger in Budapest than the psychological ones.
Theoretical background
The image of tourism destinations in research work began in the 1970s. Hunt had one of the first definitions in 1971; its image is defined as people's all impressions about other places than the place of residence. In recent decades, many researchers clarified the concept of tourism image. Crompton's (1979) definition draws attention that the tourism image involves beliefs, ideas and facts. According to Parenteau (1995) among the elements of the image there are positive and negative impressions to. (Gallarza, Gil, Calderon 2002) Su-lyok (2006) wrote that the tourism image is a constantly changing, complex, has complicated structure, and relative and changing patterns in space and time.
According to Gunn (1998), the tourism image appears in two levels, the organic and the indicated level. The first one means the non-tourism specific news, television reports, articles, and other information. The second level is the marketing messages mediated by destination management organizations. Fakeye and Crompton (1991) complemented these two levels with a further one, the personal experiences.
The elements of tourist image can be determined by Mazanec (1994) along functional and psychologi-
cal axis, which we also used in our analysis. Mazanec (1994) analysed the image elements based on 25 researches. Along the axis, the elements appear from tangible towards the emotional elements. The basic functional elements are the wide variety of attractions, landscape, environment, natural environment, cultural attractions and entertainment, nightlife. Among the emotional image elements the quality of services, originality and hospitality play the most important role. In tourism image the landscape, the natural environment, cultural attractions the hospitality, the local people's attitude and the entertainment are the strongest elements, so most of the tourist experts examine these elements. More important, but less commonly accepted elements of image are the accommodations, hospitality, gastronomy, destination accessibility, climate, shopping facilities, as well as the peace of mind.
Trends of cruise tourism
The river cruising industry is one of the fastest growing vacation markets. Its growth rate is almost double compared to the overall transportation sector.
The increased market demand leads to the formation of new round cruise trips every year. However, due to the increased competition not only the cruises but the destinations also have to keep up with the quality demand with their programs. Recognizing this demand cruises have to meet their guests' needs not only on the cruise hotel but also with the destination program to special and different target groups. With new packages and thematic tours they can reach new segments of guests.
Cruise hotels offer a very good possibility to destinations where they stop to show their attractions and complex programs to the cruise guests. It is often carried out in such a way that the passengers disembark the cruise and have a one day sightseeing. (Jaszberenyi 2014) These destination specific programs make the cruise tourism more and more interesting, which could be a horse or folklore show;
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Journal Bulletin of Stavropol Region
wine tasting, cooking trainee etc. The starting and the ending point of the cruise trip have the most possibilities to convince the guests with creative ideas to stay some more days and better know the destination.
Cruise tourism in Budapest
The capacity of cruises on the Danube is around 160-180 people. Every year 450-500 thousand passengers visit Budapest on cruises. The European sender countries stagnate, the overseas market increases 20 % per year. 80 % of the overseas passengers are American. 40% of guests from overseas extend their stay in Budapest by 2-3 nights. Their hotel reservation is concentrated on the 4-5 star hotels on the bank of the Danube, like Sofitel Budapest Chain Bridge, Budapest Intercontinental, and Budapest Marriott Hotel. (Jászberényi 2014) Annual number of ports by cruise is 15-20. There are 200 river cruises on the Danube, belonging to 10-12 bigger companies. There are Ave big
operators in the cruising market. One of these Ave is the Tauck World Discovery. Budapest is the starting or the ending point of the trips in most of the times.
Methodology
We chose the method of document analysis to explore the image of Budapest. The advantage of the document analysis is that the documents are easily and quickly accessible via the Internet which makes this research method highly economical. In some cases, such materials are the exclusive sources of information. Another advantage of this method is that it does not affect the research results, but the materials concerned are not always comparable. The documents may reflect a unilateral view as they represent the approach of the company Tauck World Discovery about Budapest by brochures (Golnhofer 2001). However, these sources are sometimes difficult to access and/or deficient, and coding may also be a serious problem (Krippendorf 1980).
The elements of image Trips to Budapest Trip from Budapest Trips through Budapest
A wide variety of attractions Szechenyi Baths, Heroes square, House of Terror Museum, castle Hill, Fisherman's Bastion, Matthias Church, Parliament, State Opera House, Chain Bridge Chain Bridge, Castle of Buda, Matthias Church, St. Stephens's Basilica, Heroes' Square, Parliament, Andrassy Avenue City Park, Andrassy Avenue, UNESCO World Heritage Site, State Opera House, St. Stephens's Basilica, Synagoge at Dohany street, Heroes' Square, Imre Nagy Memorial House, House of Terror, Fisherman's Bastion, Matthias Church,
Landscape, environment Historic sites mediavel sites in the Hungarian countryside two cities on opposite sides of the Danube
Natural attractions Danube, park Danube
Cultural attractions Jewish history, Hungarian Icons, Romanian musician at home, insights into Liszt Bartok Bela Memorial House, historic monuments cultural sites, jewish heritage
Entertainment, nightlife Trendy ruin pubs, district 8 walk, Budapest Concert Private piano recital guided tours
Shopping facilities shop like a local, Covered Market
Information The brochures
Sport facilities
Transport facilities Pedi cab
Accommodations Le Meridien, Kempinski Hotel Corvinus Le Meridien Le Meridien
Gastronomy pastries and schnapps, local restaurants with traditional and international cuisine private dinner
Price/value ratio
Climate
Relaxation vs. Mass tourism
Availability Budapest Ferenc Liszt Airport, Keleti train station
Security
Relationship
Hospitality Puszta horse farm
Originality folk traditions of Hungarian betyars of centuries ago, horseback ride in Kunsagi National Park
Quality of services problem-free, most exciting and memorable
Table 1 - The elements of tourism image by Tauck World Discovery's trips
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Bulletin of Stavropol Region
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Results from document analysis
Tauck Word Discovery was founded in 1925 which runs lands tours all over the world, but its river cruises focus in Europe. The first European river cruise launched in 1992 (Tauck World Discovery 2015) These cruise hotels have a lot of luxury services and another plus is that the guests spend less time on the cruise and more time exploring the stop destinations as Budapest. (OverwaterWorld.com 2015)
We analysed the Tauck World Discovery's three brochures (Tauck 2014 2015ab) by document analysis, in which there are seven trips where one of the stops is Budapest. In four of them Budapest is the ending point (Imperial Europe: Budapest, Vienna &Prague, Blue Danube, Amsterdam to Budapest by Riverboat, Musical Magic along the Blue Danube), one of them start from Budapest (Budapest to the Black Sea) and two of them go through Budapest (Warsaw, Budapest, Vienna & Prague, Grand European Cruise).
Table 1 shows the results of the document analysis. We collected all of the elements which refer to the image of Budapest in three types of tours. There are some elements which were mentioned in brochures in all trips such as Heroes' Square and Matthias Church, so especially the wide variety of attractions. The accommodations and the availability were the same in all of the trips as the Meridien Budapest hotel, and the Budapest Liszt Ferenc Airport and the Keleti train station. The brochures themselves mean the information element. It is interesting that the shopping and transport facilities, hospitality and originality elements were mentioned only in the trips to Budapest. About quality of service only a citation referred to: Our entire Budapest to the Black sea cruise was seamless and problem-free", "one of the most exciting and memorable adventures we've had". There are some elements for which there is not any referred words as sport facilities, price/value ratio, climate, relaxation/mass tourism, security and relationship. It could be because the brochures as marketing tool cannot be appropriate to refer these elements.
Conclusion
Analysing the image of Budapest by document analysis we could say, that not all of the elements of tourist image could appear in brochures. It is interesting that some elements totally miss from brochures as sport facilities, price/value ratio, climate, relaxation/mass tourism, security and relationship. The typical functional elements are very strong but most of the psychological elements are weak in the image of Budapest. So the results show that we should concentrate in our marketing tools to the psychological elements. Cruise tourist should know about our security and relationship. And we also have to emphasize our good price/value ratio, our good climate and the sport facilities as well.
Despite the fact that cruise tourism has long history in the river Danube, the organization which is responsible the tourism of Budapest did not deal with this segment. They thought it is not useful for Budapest because of all-inclusive service on cruises. Nowadays the approach has already changed and they see all of the advantages which cruise tourism can bring to Budapest. Travel agencies started to offer optional programs, which bring plus income. Trips could be supplemented with a 2-3 days staying, which tourists have high willingness to spend. Without marketing the country could be advertised by cruises. But we also have to know there are some threats. Vienna also applying for this transit position as Budapest, and the city has already carried out major port developments. On the other hand Budapest port infrastructure needs development. There is also a big problem there is no consensus about the place of international ports: If they remain in the city, they cut of locals and tourists the direct contact with the river Danube. But if they are in quay out of the city, Budapest loses the competitive advantages against Vienna.
Assuming our results and conclusions we could say that it is worth dealing with this segment of tourists and also investigating to analyse the impact of cruise tourism to the image of Budapest.
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