Urban planning and tourism development in Budapest

Budapest was born in 1873, in the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, when the three towns -Pest, Buda, Óbuda - were united. This development encouraged new constructions representing the role, the weight and the growing prestige of Budapest in the Monarchy. The constructions made Budapest one of the biggest, most systematic and modern cities in Europe. In this process the Millennium Exhibition (1896) played a key-role while creating the image of the present Budapest. According to our hypotheses we analyze the impacts of the Millennium Exhibition and of the main boulevards -Andrássy út, Kiskörút, Nagykörút (Ringstrasse / Grand Boulevard)- in the structure of the city development, parallel phenomenon that of Vienna. This period also had great impacts on the development of Budapest’s tourism. Not only the infrastructural facilities were created, but also the organizational framework of tourism was established. The number of foreign visitors was 130.000 (1895), by 1912 it almost doubled (250.000 visitors): Budapest became a cosmopolite European town. In our days the most visited tourism centers in Budapest are the same as they were in the last decades. According to the initiatives of the government there will be important changes in the urban development in the near future which might have impacts on tourism, as well.