Managing the campaign as the Hungarian capital’s tourism organization, the Budapest Festival and Tourism Centre (BFTK), in close cooperation with its partners, has been working for a long time so that as many people get to know the unique beauty and lively cultural life of Budapest as possible, and that as many of those people visit us as possible, of course. The results from our hard work are clearly visible. Every year, more and more people visit the capital and, even better, those visitors spend increasingly more time with us.

Budapest’s successful image campaign has been also confirmed by EBD, which organised the vote. The notification of the winning the prize states that “no other winning European travel destination has received such international support, i.e. votes from outside the country concerned. 77% of the votes in support of Budapest came from outside Hungary, in particular the UK, USA, Germany, France, Austria and Italy. Budapest has thus delivered a smashing victory,”  the notification states.

European Best Destinations – whose purpose is to promote European tourism and culture – has shown world travelers the way for ten years, closely cooperating with the continent’s biggest destination and tourism offices, as well as the EDEN network, established by the European Commission, and has provided assistance to tens of millions of tourists on selecting the most appropriate travel destination. This recognition can thus be turned into tangible benefits very easily; we need only consider the nearly 500,000 people from 153 countries who followed the voting with interest this year to find out what the best place to book a flight to next is.

The best destination receives year-long promotion on the European Best Destinations website, in the most prestigious international travel, business and lifestyle media outlets, and on numerous social media platforms and travel portals – on the basis of previous experience, the number of tourists visiting the best destination is expected to increase due to the year-long campaign from the company, which organises the competition. The city voted best travel destination can use the “Best European Destination” title and logo for a year.