Szeged is a city of culture, why not apply for the title of European Capital of Culture?

Abstract

Since the establishment of the European Capital of Culture award, the applications of two Hungarian cities, Pécs (2010) and Veszprém (2023) have been successful. The main priority of the application is to reflect on the cultural wealth of the member states, as well as to increase the feeling of belonging to the common cultural area and to learn about different cultures. Of course, the title has the effect of increasing the city's image on the European tourism market, which can contribute to the expansion of the tourism performance of the award-winning city and the wider region, and to the development of its cultural offer. In our study, we do not want to contextualize the award-winning cities, but a large domestic city that has similar values for stakeholders, such as Pécs or Veszprém. To support this, on the one hand, we take as a basis the results of a nationally representative sample of 1,000 people closely related to the topic, related to Szeged, which has not yet been published from this aspect. On the other hand, we will discuss the relevant parts of the professional analyzes completed in 2021 at the request of the Hungarian Tourism Agency in the area of the development of cultural tourism in the tourist area of Szeged and its region. Thirdly, based on the data of the National Tourism Data Supply Centre (NTDSC), we examined the performance of the city of Szeged in 2021 in terms of the main sending market (Germany). The aim of our study is to draw attention to the margin of the successful ECoC application of the city of Veszprém, to a city that, according to public opinion, has a prominent role in terms of cultural values and may even be a suitable candidate for the award in a subsequent tender.