I just ran across a small but telling story that gives a hint of the opportunities and challenges Budapest’s crucial convention and conference business faces in the current slump. According to this piece published in Conference and Incentive Travel magazine last week, French media giant Lagadere Group decided to move a big corporate conference originally scheduled for Dubai to Budapest, due to the lower costs of flying people in and out and housing and entertaining them. But then, just as the preparation were being made for the 400+ delegates (plus untold spouses and hangers-on) here in Hungary, the company switched gears again, and decided to just have the jamboree back home in Paris.
It’s stories like this that really do make one think that, if Budapest was just a bit more competitive, it could really clean up among cost-conscious European companies who nevertheless need to get their extended corporate families together in person once in a while. If nothing else, it really puts that five percentage point VAT hike scheduled for July 1st in perspective…