Non-planning and tourism consumption in Budapest’s inner city

Smith, Melanie Kay and Egedi, Tamás and Csizmady, Adrienne and Jancsik, András and Michalkó, Gábor (2018) Non-planning and tourism consumption in Budapest’s inner city. Tourism Geographies : An International Journal Of Tourism Space Place And Environment, 20 (3). pp. 524-548. ISSN 1461-6688

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Abstract

The aim of this paper will be to explore the relationship between urban planning and tourism consumption in two of the most attractive and popular districts of Budapest. Budapest is the capital city of Hungary and has a population of 1.7 million inhabitants making it one of the largest metropolitan regions in Central Eastern Europe (Földi, 2006). It is especially interesting to analyse past and current urban planning trends in Central and Eastern European cities because of the changing political system immediately following the socialist era (post-1989), when international tourism also started to become a new feature of the city. Budapest is typical of many other post-socialist cities in that its urban development process has followed a somewhat different trajectory from many Western European cities until recently, for example the relatively slow rate of gentrification in the post-socialist years. The paper will focus in particular on two central districts of the city (VI and VII) which currently attract high numbers of tourists. The planning and development history of the districts will be explained, including many controversies and conflicts which have arisen over the years. In addition to analysing the significance of the areas’ heritage and the intensive growth of the creative industries, the paper will also provide a case study about the Budapest-specific ‘ruin bar’ phenomenon, as well as data on the global issue of Airbnb, which is becoming an extremely topical and controversial issue in many other cities in the world today (Bock, 2015). ‘Ruin bars’ and Airbnb represent local and global examples of tourism consumption which have flourished despite or even because of an unstructured urban planning system. The paper aims to answer two main questions: - To what extent has planning (or a lack of it) influenced urban development and the new trends of international tourism in Budapest? - What role has tourism played in the transformation of two central districts within the inner city?

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