CC BY
34
Экономика
УДК 338.48
TOURISM INFRASTRUCTURE INDEX AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF DEVELOPMENT FUNDS IN STATISTICAL REGIONS OF HUNGARY
JOZSEF KAPOSZTA,
candidate of sciences in economic sciences, associate professor, dean, director,
ADRIENN NAGY,
candidate of science, engineer of department,
HENRIETTA NAGY,
doctor of science in management and business administration, associate professor, vice-dean,
Institute of regional economics and rural development, Szent Istvan University, Hungary
(1 K. Pater Str., H-2100, Godollo, Hungary; e-mail: Nagy.Henrietta@gtk.szie.hu)
Keywords: tourism infrastructure index, distribution of development, tourism, development, funds, statistical regions, Hungary. Tourism is one of the highest income-generating sectors which has influence on other economic and social processes as well. With the increase in the solvent demand, it can contribute to the creation of sustainable touristic service. At the current programming period, there is EUR 5 billion available for developing the agriculture, rural environment and the rural areas in Hungary. It facilitates the changes of the economic structure, started already, and slows down the break-off of the rural areas to be able to start the economic and social catch up. Funds available for the touristic services can improve the competitiveness of the regions, in case they are used efficiently. Such funds are available from various sources. The New Hungary Rural Development Strategic Plan contains the strategic frame of the Hungarian rural development, funded by the European Fund for Agriculture and Rural Development. Its aim is to create the development potentials to improve the agriculture, to preserve the natural values in the rural areas, to strengthen the rural economies as well as to achieve social cohesion. The funds that are for encouraging the touristic activities are available in the 3rd axis in the New Hungary Rural Development Program, financed by the European Fund for Agriculture and Rural Development. Out of the 4 axis, this represents 12 % of the funds, with a co-financing rate of 75 %. The touristic potentials of the regions have been improved from the Regional Operational Programs of the National Development Plan and later on of the New Hungary Development Plan (Kassai Zs., Ritter K., 2011). The aim of the non-refund-able funds is to create or preserve jobs in the rural areas, especially in relation to sustainable rural-, agro-, eco-tourism as well as promoting the marketing of related services. The New Szechenyi Plan has supported the touristical projects as well. Eligible developments include development of accommodation facilities, of business- and marketing activities as well as education and training. One of our objectives in this research was to examine these funds and the concrete development directions in details and to investigate what their spatial distribution is in the country, seeing whether these funds show any concentration in Hungary.
ИНДЕКС ТУРИСТИЧЕСКОЙ ИНФРАСТРУКТУРЫ И РАСПРЕДЕЛЕНИЕ ФОНДОВ РАЗВИТИЯ ПО СТАТИСТИЧЕСКИМ РЕГИОНАМ ВЕНГРИИ
ЙОЖЕФ КАПОСТА,
кандидат экономических наук, доцент, декан, директор,
АДРИЕНН НАДЬ,
кандидат наук, инженер отдела,
ХЕНРИЕТТА НАДЬ,
доктор наук в области менеджмента и организационных наук, доцент, заместитель декана, Институт региональной экономики и сельскохозяйственного развития, Университет Святого Иштвана, Венгрия
(H-2100, Венгрия, г. Геделле, ул. К. Патер, д. 1; e-mail: Nagy.Henrietta@gtk.szie.hu)
Ключевые слова: индекс туристической инфраструктуры, распределение средств, туризм, развитие, фонды, статистические регионы, Венгрия.
Туризм является одним из самых высокодоходных секторов, который имеет влияние также и на другие экономические и социальные процессы. С повышением платежеспособного спроса он может способствовать созданию устойчивых туристических услуг. В нынешний век программирования доступно 5 млрд евро для развития сельского хозяйства, улучшения окружающей среды в сельской местности и сельских районах Венгрии. Это ведет к изменениям экономической структуры, которые уже началась, и замедляет распад в сельской местности, что делает возможным рост экономических и социальных показателей. Средства, доступные для туристических услуг, могут повысить конкуренто-способностьрегионов в случае, если они используются эффективно. Такие средства доступны из различных источников. Новый Стратегический План Развития Сельских Регионов Венгрии содержит стратегическую систему сельского развития Венгрии, финансируемую Европейским фондом Сельскохозяйственного и Сельского развития. Его целью является создание потенциальных возможностей развития для улучшения сельского хозяйства, сохранения природных ценностей в сельской местности, укрепление сельской экономики, а также социальной сплоченности. Фонды для поощрения туристических мероприятий доступны в 3-м блоке Новой Программы Развития Сельского хозяйства Венгрии, финансируемой Европейским фондом Развития Сельского хозяйства и Сельских районов. Из четырех блоков он составляет 12 % фондов, с софинансированием в размере 75 %. Туристический потенциал регионов были улучшен за счет Региональных Оперативных Программ Национального Плана Развития, а позже Нового Плана Развития Венгрии (Кассай Ж., Риттер К., 2011). Цель невозвратных фондов — создание и сохранение рабочих мест в сельских районах, особенно в отношении устойчивого сельского-, агро-, эко-туризма, а также продвижение и маркетинг этих услуг. Новый План Сечени также поддержал туристические проекты. Необходимыми для фондирования мероприятиями являются развитие гостиниц и других мест размещения, бизнес- и маркетинговые мероприятия, а также образование и профессиональная подготовка. Одной из задач настоящего исследования было изучить эти фонды и конкретные направления развития в подробностях и выяснять, как они распределены по стране, где в Венгрии они сконцентрированы больше всего.
Положителъная рецензия представлена Томашем Тот, доктором наук в области менеджмента и организационных наук, проректором по учебной работе, доцентом Института региональной экономики и развития провинции в составе факультета экономических и социальных наук Университета Святого Иштвана (г. Геделле, Венгрия).
Экономика
The tourism is a global issue. At the beginning of the 21th century in the developed part of the globe, the tourism has became the part of the daily life it means the useful spending of the leisure time. As the tourism is an inter-industrial economic issue it could highly contribute to the several part of the economy (Horska, Smutka, Maitah, 2012). The strongest connection of the tourism is with the accommodation services and the recreation services. It is a fact that the tourism is one of the most important industries. There are some countries where the tourism gives the main contribution to the GDP. The tourism is able to generate direct effects to the domestic economy and indirect effects to the cultural and social dimension.
The development of tourism has a socio-economical influence, which brings together the community, involves the small entrepreneurs to the economical circulation, activates the local education, establishes unique attraction, raises the local heritages, creates equal opportunities for the inhabitants and removes the gap between the less developed and well developed areas. (Goda, Nagy, 2010).
The aim of the tourism is the external capital which can come to the local community. It is a financial and social-mentally refreshment of the area. The financial refreshment means that from outside the community gains money — it is given “new energy” into the system. The social-mental refreshment means that the community gets new inputs, ideas. They will not be isolated from the global economy and they can integrate to the global circulation, which helps them to increase their potential. The long term objective of the EU is to continue the support of the less-developed regions and to help them catching-up with the developed ones, though it has not brought spectacular results so far in many of the regions. (Ritter, 2010).
In order to realize the targets set in the National Development Plan (2004-2006), five developments have been prepared, including one with the comprehensive developments of the seven regions, called Regional Operation Program. This program included an individual priority called “Strengthening of touristic potentials”. The measures “Developing the touristic attractions” and “Improving the touristic attractiveness” greatly contributed to the promotion of the development of tourism sector.
Altogether 114 projects have been implemented in the regions, including HUF 30.07 billion funds. In Bor-sod-Abauj-Zemplen county, 19 projects were realized from HUF 4.31 billion. It is interesting to see that e. g. Western-Transdanubia and Central-Transdanubia have not received such amount of funds. Most of the funds — total HUF 3.39 billion — was spent on “Development of world-heritage places and historical city centers with significant tourism potentials” in B-A-Z county, out of which Tokaj received almost HUF 3 billion. The rest of the funds was spent on the improvement of accommodations. The least fund was received by Tolna county until 2006. There were only two projects for improving the accommodation facilities in the Dombovar micro region, accounting for HUF 0.05 billion.
Within the New Hungary Development Plan (20072011) all the seven regions had their own regional operational programs where tourism remained to be an important issue. In addition, the development of accommodation facilities, the development of attractions as well as the establishment of Touristical Destination Management organizations were among the priorities. 390 proj-
ects have been implemented so far, accounting for HUF 115.59 billion fund. In our study we focus on these funds due to the availability of data.
In January 2011, the New Szechenyi Plan replaced the former development plan. One of the important strategic directions, namely the Healing Hungary Health Industry Program, has the tourism development priority. In order to realize that priority, 603 projects gained funds of total HUF 130 billion. The number of projects implemented so far is 141, totaling of HUF 13.72 billion.
Material and methods.
1. Data collection:
The research is based on secondary statistical data analysis and comparison. In the analysis, we defined five indicators, out of which 4 were applied to define the infrastructural potential of tourism and the last one describes the funds for touristic purposes. The data have been collected from TEIR database and from the National Development Agency (NFU) at county level. We have collected the data for 19 counties, excluding Budapest, since the capital does not belong to the convergence regions and is not eligible for touristic funds, therefore it is useless to include it in the analysis.
As for the touristic funds distributed among the counties, we carried out our research based on the funds of the programming period of the New Hungary Development Plans as well as the figures for the year 2011.
2. Statistical and mathematical calculation:
The indicators involved in the analysis are as follows:
1. In the case of time-optimization, the fastest route to the highway conjunction in minutes.
2. The number of catering facilities.
3. The number of nights spent at commercial accommodations + other (nights spent at private accommodation until 2009).
4. The number of cultural events.
After homogenizing the abovementioned indicators, we compared them to the touristic funds approved. We need to emphasize that the research is in its starting phase so we have compared only these four indicators so far. The number of indicators will be increased in the further phases of the research, adding economic, social and environmental indicators. In order to examine the coherences, we needed to create indices from the data available.
3. Mapping the results:
To illustrate the regional differences the mapping method is one of the most common methods. In this research two maps have been created to understand the disparities.
Results and discussion.
The abovementioned indicators have been transformed with mathematical methods and we created partial indices from the figures. For all the counties these partial indices have been summed and their average has been calculated, which we named as infrastructural potential index of tourism. With using the minimum and maximum values, we calculated the deviation of the index and created four categories (Goda, 2012).
Based on the indicators we can state that Pest, Zala and Veszprem are in the best position (Figure 1). The reason for their favourable position is the proximity of Budapest and the Lake Balaton, adding that Zala is close to the Western border too. Several former researches justify that the two most popular and preferred destina-
Экономика
Figure 1
Tourism infrastructure potential index in Hungary Source: own editing, based on NDA and TEIR data (2011)
tions in the country are Budapest and the surrounding area of Lake Balaton. Therefore these counties have high touristic potentials.
The next cluster consists of 8 counties, with indicators above the average (0.31). They have one feature in common causing their good position, namely that their partial index regarding accessibility is good, meaning that the highway conjunction in the county can be reached in short time. In Borsod-Abauj-Zemplen county the index is
Figure 2
The amount of NDA subsidies in Hungary from 2007 to 2011 Source: own editing based on NDA and TEIR data (2011)
high due to the effect of funds spent within the National Development Plan for the preservation of world-heritage and the use of funds for the improvement of accommodation facilities and services. These counties have touristic potentials above the average which impact on other sectors cannot be forgotten.
We have found average values in 5 counties, out of which Tolna is closer to the areas lagging behind. Despite its extremely good accessibility partial index, that
Экономика
of the number of catering facilities and nights spent is quite low.
From touristic infrastructure potential aspect, Bekes, Szabolcs-Szatmar-Bereg and Nograd counties can be considered counties lagging behind. According to the indicators, these counties require complex touristic developments, since all the important touristic partial indices are very low.
Funds. After analyzing the indicators and defining the categories, we considered it important to examine the funds for 2007-2011 period.
As Figure 2 shows, the highest amount of funds for touristic purpose was granted to Borsod-Abauj-Zemplen, Heves and Veszprem counties. Based on the indicators mentioned above, the infrastructure potential of tourism in all these counties was extremely good or above the average in line with the high amount of touristic funds.
Relatively high funds could be used by Csongrad, Gyor-Moson-Sopron and Hajdu-Bihar counties as well. However, there are 7 counties which received very low funds for touristic developments, including Zala county, which is very surprising, since it has outstanding infrastructural potential based on the indices. One reason can be that the existence of basic touristic infrastructure does not involve high funds. However, Veszprem county had good indices and received high funds. It can be stated that Nograd county is a county lagging behind from touristic potential point of view because the potential is the lowest there and receives low amount of funds as well. Consequently, the county needs basic economic, social and infrastructural developments more than touristic ones.
Conclusions.
Overall, it can be concluded that high amount of touristic funds were received by counties which are easily accessible, are close to highways, therefore a territorial concentration can be observed along the M1, M6, M7 and M3. We can observe that the counties with the poorest results regarding tourism infrastructure are either far from the highways (Bekes) or have poor quality of infra-
structure and low economic and social activity (Szabol-cs-Szatmar-Bereg and Nograd), however the latter one is not far from the capital but there are tiny settlements that are isolated from the others.
We can also state that even if economic indicator was not included among the indicators examined, there is a strong correlation between the economic development level of the area and the infrastructure potential. We can assume that infrastructure potentials are better where the economy is more developed due to the higher demand for touristic services and the availability of solvent market.
It is also interesting that out of 3 counties with the lowest potentials (Bekes, Szabolcs-Szatmar, Nograd) only Szabolcs-Szatmar could gain relatively high funds compared to the other two which means that it stepped on the path of tourism development even if the amount was still below the average, but the others can be considered unsuccessful in this matter. Consequently, they are in difficult situation, since with their low potentials in line with low amounts of funds, they need much more efforts to catch up with the others. In our opinion, Nograd should take advantage of its proximity from the capital and local resources and traditions. The activity of Tolna in gaining funds should also be accelerated, due to its characteristic settlement-system consisting of tiny settlements with good natural endowments but poor economic and social background as well as low interest by foreign direct capital.
In addition, it is clear that even if some counties belong to the same cluster, their strengths regarding infrastructure potentials in tourism are not the same, they are in good positions due to various reasons. In our further researches we wish to examine in details what factors influenced the favourable indices of the counties and what factors are missing in the counties with poor performance in tourism. In our researches we intend to examine what factors are required and what resources are necessary in a county for the development of tourism.
References
1 Horska E., Smutka L., Maitah M. The impacts of the global economic crisis on selected segments of the world trade in commodities “Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis”. 2012. Vol. 60. № 7. P. 101-110.
2. Goda P. Uj rendszerszemleletu helyzetfeltarasi modszer a videki teruletek fejleszteseben, doktori (PhD) ertekezes. Godollo, 2012.
3. Goda P., Nagy A. Regional analysis of the developement actions of tourism between 2007 and 2010 in the NHDP “Crossborder initiatives to facilitate economic and social developement in the V4 countries and in Ukraine”, June 2-4, 2010. Szent Istvan University, Godollo, Hungary. ISBN 978-963-269-182-4. P. 213-222.
4. Kassai Zs., Ritter K. Helyi videkfejlesztesi programok a hatranyos helyzetu videki kistersegekben “Gazdalkodas” 55. Ev-folyam 4. Szam. 2011. ISSN 0046-5518. P. 337-346.
5. Ritter K. Socio-economic development and employment crisis in agriculture in Hungary. P. 72-89. In : Kulcsar, L. (ed.) : Regional aspects of social and economic restructuring in Eastern Europe : The Hungarian Case. Budapest, 2010. KSH. iSbN 978963-235-293-0.
Литература
1. Хорска Е., Смутка Л., Майтах М. Влияние глобального экономического кризиса на отдельные сегменты международной торговли товарами «Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis». 2012. Т 60. № 7. С. 101-110.
2. Года П. Новый системный метод анализа ситуации в развитии сельских регионов : докторская. дисс. Геделле, 2012.
3. Года П, Надь A. Региональный анализ мероприятий по развитию туризма в период между 2007 и 2010 г. в рамках «Национальной программы развития автомобильных дорог». Трансграничные инициативы по содействию экономическому и социальному развитию в странах V4 и на Украине (2-4 июня, 2010 г.). Университет Святого Иштвана, Геделле. ISBN 978-963-269-182-4. С. 213-222.
4. Кассай Ж., Риттер К. Локальные программы развития сельских территорий в районах с неблагоприятными условиями. ISSN 0046-5518. С. 337-346.
5. Риттер К. Социально-экономическое развитие и кризис трудоустройства в аграрном секторе Венгрии. Региональные аспекты социальной и экономической реструктуризации в странах Восточной Европы : Венгерский опыт. Будапешт, 2010. ISBN 978-963-235-293-0.
