CEEweb for Biodiversity and Bükk National Park Directorate (BNPD) organised interviews with their most important stakeholders on their pilot sites. These interviewees came from different backgrounds, such as education, local forestry firm, tourist association and a national park ranger also took part in the interviews.
The interviews and the outcome of the conversations were fruitful and several interesting answers evolved.
All interviewees agree in the fact that the level of tourism in the area has increased at least slightly at the pilot sites at Bükk National Park and Mátra Mountains.
It is also clear that the impact of tourism on the pilot sites shows a mixed picture with both positive and negative examples.
The greatest challenges in tourism management according to our interviewees are the following:
- communicating appropriate attitudes
- reducing or eliminating littering;
- providing up-to-date information on specific hiking trails;
- training individuals involved in tourism (such as guides), including on how to navigate and behave in urban or protected areas;
- introducing innovative tourism options (e.g. route descriptions on smartphones, guiding family or forest school groups in the field – using local information and innovative tools);
- training tour guides to meet new needs;
- better management of mass events;
- tourism organisations and practitioners have a distinctly people-centred view, and tourism development is not essentially about maintaining/improving the state of nature, but about transforming it to meet the needs of tourism/people;
- further education.
All stakeholders agree that there are potentials in cooperating with the Hungarian partners (CEEweb and BNPD) of the HUMANITA project, and the project itself in certain ways, such as: workshops, meetings, future projects and tasks, and sharing ideas with each other constantly.