The Role and Possibilities of Hungarian Narrow-Gauge Railways in Tourism

Abstract

Since the 1980’s almost all of the the Hungarian narrow-gauge railway lines made a complete change of function. In the following decade with a few exceptions the freight was completely abolished and replaced by tourism. We need to address several factors if we want to determine the tourism potential of a particular narrow-gauge railway. One of these is accessibility, which shows what extra effort a tourist needs to make to get to a particular attraction. It is not enough just to look at accessibility, we also need to look how narrow-gauge railways can get involved in the tourism system. In a tourism approach we can examine points of interest from several perspectives. The interdependent material conditions of tourism include basic infrastructure, attraction and tourism infrastructure. The basic infrastructure in tourism means the existence of conditions that are essential to see the attraction. Several narrow-gauge railways also play a role in the basic infrastructure, however, their most significant role is the dynamic infrastructure. The narrow-gauge railway transports tourists to the tourist attraction, or due to its nature, attracts tourists. Most of the Hungarian narrow-gauge railway fall into the category of dynamic infrastructure. Attraction is difficult to define, because there are a lot of subjective elements, but most of the Hungarian narrow-gauge railways we can definitely highlight and call as real attractions. It is important to talk about seasonality. Not all of them offer the same experience in summer as in winter, they are not the same attractions in all seasons. By tourist milieu we mean the attraction of the destination, the totality of the experiences gained there.