The flourishing thermal bath business of Budapest

According to hvg.hu, the famous thermal baths of Budapest went through quite a few changes in the past years: they became trendy touristic destinations from being the soak-barrel of the elderly. The Hungarian bath culture is flourishing, it’s a real success story.

Based on a survey conducted last year, the historic baths of Budapest – Gellért, Lukács, Rudas and Széchenyi – are mostly visited by British, French and American guests, who are followed by German, Italian, Russian, Spanish and Swedish tourists. The baths are also visited by people from Andorra, Iceland, Greenland, Dubai, Bolivia, Mongolia and Senegal. 90% of those visiting Széchenyi and Gellért with full price tickets are foreigners. During the week of the survey conducted by Budapest Spas cPlc., the visitors came from more than 90 countries. Based on this information, they believe that at least 60% of tourists coming to Budapest visit one of the thermal baths.

The operation of spas and beaches in Budapest has grown into a true success story in the past years. The Budapest Spas cPlc. finished the year of 2010 with a loss worth 700 million forints (~EUR 2m), while they had a profit of 11.5 billion (~EUR 37m) last year. The 8 baths and 4 beaches operated by the company welcomed four million guests in 2016, meaning that the number of visitors grew by one million in six years. What’s more, our baths became the trendy destinations of tourists from being the soak-barrels of the elderly. The investments were partly financed from credit, but mostly from the profit of the company, thus becoming the most prosperous enterprise in the capital city.

What makes Budapest unique among the big cities of Europe is that it is one of the few cities where historic baths are still functioning. Roman baths can be found in several cities, but they mostly function as museums. However, the precious heritage is not enough, the bathing facilities of Budapest are constantly being renewed based on the feedback of bathers. For instance, this is why couple’s massages with essential oils were introduced in three historic baths.

According to a 2011 survey, the thermal baths of Budapest mainly attracted people in their 50s-60s, but now, half of the guests are young adults. This is probably due to the popular cultural and entertainment programmes held in the spas from time to time.