Go Feedback: Aer Lingus has teamed up with a leading hotel in Budapest to entice bargain-hunting tourists to visit the city, writes Jack Fagan
IT DOESNT TAKE a pin-striped economist to realise that a recession will inevitably lead to bargains – particularly in the airline and hotel businesses.
One example of the infinitely better value now available for those travelling to Budapest is to be highlighted in a new marketing campaign by Aer Lingus and the Kempinski Hotel Corvinus in Budapest.
One-way tickets for the airline’s five weekly services can be booked at €39.99 and €49.99 (before taxes) and the five-star hotel is also offering special rates for four nights’ accommodation in Budapest and Pecs (two nights in each hotel) before and after the high season (from now until the end of August and again from November 1st to December 22nd).
A four-night stay in a single room will cost €649 while a double works out at €396 per person, including VAT and taxes. The cost in the busy months of September and October is marginally higher. The stay in the Kempinski hotel will include breakfast, one dinner and a tour of the city.
The Pecs hotel included in the package is the four-star Hotel Kikelet. It sits on the side of the Mecsek mountains overlooking the city which this year is being honoured as the European Capital of Culture.
The crowded year-long programme of cultural events is attracting a worldwide audience. As the drive from Budapest to Pecs takes the best part of three hours, it makes sense to spend at least one night in Pecs which has been an important museum centre since the 1970s.
One of the most cherished permanent exhibitions is that featuring locally produced ceramic plates and vases from the 1870s as well as architectural ceramics which are to be found on some of the most notable buildings in the city.
The founder of the Zsolnay porcelain factory, Vilmos Zsolnay, is remembered with a large bronze statue (in which he holds a ceramic jug in one hand) close to the entrance of the main railway station.
Back in Budapest, The Kempinski is a cool, modern hotel that is right in the city centre and it has 335 rooms and 29 suites.
It has been used regularly over the years by world leaders – including two Irish presidents – and top business people who must have been impressed by its strategic location, its discreet style and comfort as well as its fine dining restaurants.
The Kempinski is just around the corner from the equally prestigious Four Seasons Hotel, which last weekend was flying the Irish flag, reminding passersby that the Irish investors are still hanging in despite the financial crisis at home.
Hungary is suffering, like other central and eastern European countries, from the recession. The recent downturn has been especially obvious in a tourist market that had been relentlessly healthy since independence.
The long-running boom produced a glut of accommodatio – there are no less than 15 five-star hotels alone in the city, resulting in price cutting on a fairly wide scale.
The tourist board says the lower hotel and restaurant prices are beginning to attract in more tourists and two weeks ago there were clear signs of a pick-up in business as thousands of visitors clamoured to view the confusing mixture of art nouveau, baroque and neo-classical masterpieces on both sides of the Danube.
Restaurants, bars and coffee houses were all exceptionally busy, so too were old women peddling flowers alongside accordion players and beggars. It is all a colourful part of the commercial energy of the high streets which give Budapest a destinational bite.
So whether you want stunning buildings or open spaces, museums or theatre, opera or cinema, thermal spas or sumptuous restaurants,
Budapest will intrigue and impress the visitor. It is a truly wonderful city that is great to visit.