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Mountains and lakes are excellent assets, the competitive advantage is provided by the system
- Pakuts Tamás
- Jul 17
- 9 min read
What does the Swiss model show about Hungary's untapped tourism potential?
In tourism, it is especially easy to confuse endowment with performance. A lake, a mountain range, a historic town, a spa or a spectacular panorama are undoubtedly valuable, but none of them are tourist products in themselves. For the guest, they become such when they can get to them, understand what is worth doing there, can easily connect it with other experiences, receive reliable service and do not have to untangle the boundaries between institutions, transport companies, cities, districts, municipalities and service providers.
Switzerland can be a misleading example in this respect, if we only look at the postcard. It is easy to say that with the Alps, the lakes, the glaciers and the orderly cities it is a winner. But the mountains do not coordinate the timetable, the lakes do not create a common ticket system, the panorama does not build a sales channel, and the clean air does not organize the hotel, the shipping, the railway, the museum and the local producer next to each other.
A significant part of the Swiss advantage is not in nature, but in organizational performance - in the system.
Therefore, it is worth reading the Swiss model as an analysis of Hungary. Our country does not have four-thousander peaks, but it does have two large lakes that are significant from a tourist perspective, several smaller and partly unexploited water areas, the Danube, the Tisza, a dense network of historic towns, medicinal and thermal water, wine regions, national parks, cycling and hiking trails, industrial and transport heritage, and distances that would be particularly favorable for multi-station trips in a well-functioning public transport system.
The main reason for our lagging behind is not that there are so few attractions, but that they are rarely built into a uniformly usable, bookable, and consistently managed system.
Tourism is not a collection of attractions
The Swiss federal tourism strategy is instructive because it does not expect competitiveness from a single flagship project. It treats improving framework conditions, strengthening entrepreneurial thinking, sustainable development, exploiting the opportunities of digitalization, and increasing the attractiveness and market presence of the destination as part of the same policy.
For this, he orders specific tools:
Innotour, which supports innovation and collaboration,
Switzerland Tourism, which handles national marketing,
an institution that assists hotel financing
and a new regional policy encouraging developments with regional economic impact.
The strategy is currently under review, but the logic behind it is still clear: the competitiveness of tourism is the coordinated result of the ministry's cooperation with several other policy actors and the provision of a number of transparently provided financing instruments.
Based on the SECO strategy, one of the most important lessons for me is that a destination should not be understood as a geographical area, but as a functioning economic and service network. A lake, a mountain, a city or a spa are just one node in the system. The product is created by what happens between them: access, information, timing, quality, cooperation, sales and the consistent organization of the guest's journey.
In Hungary, many developments still assume that the renovation of an attraction, the opening of a visitor center, the construction of a hotel or a new campaign will in itself bring about a significant regional breakthrough. These may be important elements, but without connection they remain islands. The same problem emerged in the analysis entitled Not More Tourists, But More Value : the increase in traffic alone does not tell us how much value remains in place, how smaller businesses benefit from it, whether the quality of life of locals improves, and whether an offer is created that encourages longer stays.
Transport as a tourism product
One of the greatest strengths of the Swiss system is that it does not see public transport as merely a background infrastructure for accessing attractions. The railway, boat, mountain railway and bus are also part of the experience, while connecting destinations in a single sales system. The Swiss Travel Pass can be used for train, bus and boat, and combines local transport in more than ninety towns, some mountain excursions and entry to more than five hundred museums. SBB day tickets, on the other hand, sell free movement for a whole day, not separate sections. From the guest's side, this is simplicity; from the tourism economy's side, it is territorial guest distribution and demand generation.
The Grand Train Tour of Switzerland is a particularly good example of how the network becomes a product in its own right. The 1,280-kilometer route, consisting of eight sections, links eleven large lakes, five UNESCO World Heritage sites and all four official language regions in a single travel promise. The guest does not buy transport companies, but travels around Switzerland. The different operators, tariffs and ownership structures can remain in the background, because on the surface a uniform product appears.
The Lucerne-Rigi tour presented in the article One ticket, one day, one whole region was therefore more than a successful excursion. The scheduled boat, the on-board catering, the historic cogwheel train, the mountain experience and the regional railway did not exist side by side, but reinforced each other's traffic. The transport ticket gave entry to a full-fledged day of experiences in the tourist sense, and the transport brought consumption, stay time and income to several settlements and several service providers.
In Hungary, there are many foundations for this. In the Danube Bend, railways, HÉV, ships, ferries, cycle paths, historical settlements, gastronomy and nature programmes can be connected. At Lake Balaton, the two railway banks, shipping, ferries, cycling, wine regions and hinterland settlements could form a multi-day system that can be used without a car. Miskolc, Lillafüred and the Bükk, Pécs, Orfű and Abaliget, Eger and the western Bükk region or the Fertő region would also be suitable for similar products. Most of the physical elements exist, but the promise of a unified journey, consistent coordination of connections, a common ticket, real-time information and a one-stop booking offer are mostly missing.
The role of transport in tourism also begins at the entry points. An airport or main railway line does not develop a region by itself; it becomes a gateway if the arriving passenger can quickly and clearly move on to the region. The article “Hungary’s Rural Airports – A Regional Airport is a Gateway to a Region’s Opportunities ” presents the same idea on a different scale: the value of infrastructure is given by the network built on it, not by the concrete itself.
Sustainability as a systems approach
The strength of the Swisstainable program is not that it has placed another green label on the market. The program is not specifically a stand-alone certification, but rather a collection of existing, accepted sustainability certifications and makes the progress of service providers visible at three levels. The entry level requires commitment and continuous improvement, the second level already requires a recognized certification, and the highest level requires comprehensive, regularly audited performance by an external party.
More importantly, the system does not stop at the doors of hotels or individual service providers. The Swisstainable Destination program examines entire destinations. It requires a coordinating person, sustainability built into the strategy, a concrete action plan, a participating business community and continuous indicator monitoring at a higher level. This takes sustainability beyond the narrow world of towel exchange programs and selective waste collection and connects it with mobility, the local economy, the service network, guest information and destination management.
The Hungarian Tourism 2.0 supplement contains many correct elements in principle. The official document also states the priority of walking, cycling and public transport, the encouragement of combined travel modes, the inclusion of local products and services, the consideration of the quality of life of locals, and the possibility of a trademark based on sustainability criteria. The digital transition also includes guest flow management based on real-time data and tourist mobility.
The difference is not that the Hungarian strategy does not know the correct concepts. The problem is the implementation and implementation: who is responsible, in which region from which base value to which target value should be reached, how transport, tourism, environmental protection and settlement development are connected, what advantage does the participating business receive and where can the guest see the result.
The Swiss system is not flawless, but it ties commitments to levels, organizational responsibility, action plans, monitoring, and market visibility. This makes sustainability an operating model, not just a communication layer.
There is no shortage of talents in Hungary either.
The map of Hungarian tourism is much richer than what we are uniformly selling today.
Lake Balaton is not only a beach, but also a cultural landscape that can be visited by train, boat and bicycle; the Danube Bend is not a few separate districts, but a year-round river-mountain region connected to Budapest; Lake Velence is not only a water surface, but could be a cycling, natural, historical and gastronomic one-day destination. The analysis entitled Who will throw a lifeline to Lake Velence? showed how quickly a region is damaged if the main attraction weakens, while there is no jointly built alternative experience promise, uniform information and definite destination management.
Moreover, tourism based on natural resources can increasingly afford to think in terms of a single product. Low water levels, heat waves, lack of snow, extreme weather or environmental restrictions can weaken the main attraction at any time. A resilient destination does not hide this, but stands on several legs: it connects cultural, gastronomic, active, wellness, transport and community experiences so that guests can find a reason to travel even in worse weather, in a shorter season or under changed natural conditions.
The most important difference between Lake Geneva and Lake Balaton is not the color of the water or the height of the surrounding mountains. The Lake Geneva region can present several cities, two countries, railways, scheduled shipping, vineyards, cultural institutions and international brands as a mutually reinforcing system. Many of the same elements can be found around Lake Balaton, but the guest often encounters separate schedules, separate tickets, different information interfaces, seasonally changing services and fragmented communication per settlement. The difference is not in value, but in usability.
What can we learn from this?
First, that Hungary does not need another national slogan, but a few consistently structured model regions . The Danube Bend, a well-defined part of Lake Balaton, the Lake Velence–Vértes region, the Bükk or the Pécs–Mecsek region would be suitable for redesigning the entire guest journey as a system. From arrival, through local movement and program booking, to meals, accommodation and the journey home, we should look at every point to see where uncertainty, unnecessary waiting or information gaps arise.
Secondly , transport and tourism actors should be brought under a common product responsibility. What is needed is not another coordination body that meets a few times a year, but a permanent operation with the right, budget and measurable objectives to coordinate timetables, tickets, information, campaigns and service packages. The guest does not care that a ship, a train, a museum and a local bus belong to four different organisations. What is interested in is that the road works.
Thirdly, it is not necessarily necessary to develop a new application. In Hungary, a significant amount of transport and tourism data is already available, national railway sales are in operation, there is an NTAK and many service providers use a digital booking system. The task would be to connect these with an open data and sales layer from which the guest receives a unified offer, the service provider traffic and the destination a controllable guest flow. The Hungarian strategic document itself sees further development opportunities in data sharing, connected platforms and real-time tourism information.
Fourth, sustainability should be transformed into regional performance. The proportion of people arriving by public transport, spending that stays locally, off-season traffic, the share of local suppliers, population satisfaction, water and energy use, and also the extent to which the burdens and revenues of tourism are distributed fairly should be measured. Those who achieve improvement should receive marketing advantages, funding incentives and greater visibility. Those who only use green words but do not measure should not be given the same position.
Finally , the support logic should also be translated from individual buildings to functioning networks. A new lookout tower, renovated hotel or visitor center can easily remain an isolated investment in itself. The same source would often achieve a greater regional impact with connecting transport, a unified sign system, joint booking, service provider training, year-round program development and professional destination management. This was also the topic of the article Record tourism or real strategy?: good statistics do not yet prove that the structure of tourism has become stronger, more resilient and more territorially balanced.
Summary
Switzerland is not interesting to us because Hungary should play an Alpine country. The element that can be copied is not the shape of the panoramic train, the red train, the mountain hotel or the sustainability logo. The thinking behind them can be learned: organizing the entire guest journey, hiding institutional boundaries, turning transportation into a product, making sustainability measurable and involving local actors in value creation.
Hungary's assets are not weak. The problem with most of our regions is that their values appear in isolation from each other. The railway, the ship, the bicycle path, the spa, the winery, the museum, the accommodation and the restaurant are separate; the settlement, the service provider, the state actor and the transport company communicate separately. And the guest tries to put together a trip that works for him or herself from these.
The competitive advantage begins where this work is no longer done by the guest. The mountain and the lake attract attention. The system makes it accessible, connects it, sells it and makes it accessible again. Hungary's tourism future therefore depends much less on whether we find another "hidden treasure" than on whether we are finally able to build a country that works together from our already known and still untapped values.
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