This study uses an innovative tourism product development approach, based on co-creation or customer involvement, related to Lake Balaton, a mass tourism-based destination in Hungary, from the point of view of the market segment of active cycling tourists. The investigation of opportunities for the development of cycling tourism first of all relies on the new approach of attraction and product development around the destination, in which it is important to take into consideration the consumer preferences of the most important related group of tourists—active cycling tourists. The sustainable approach of tourism product development also provides an opportunity to decrease the spatial and temporal concentration of tourism, which is largely concentrated on the summertime season. The aim of this study is to explore aspects of the customers’ demand for tourism development in terms of cycling tourism with the help of primary data collection, in order to provide adequate directions for sustainable tourism development in the destination. Revealing the demand side of active cycling tourism related to Lake Balaton, the authors used both qualitative (focus group discussions and structured interviews) and quantitative questionnaire survey (computer-assisted data collection) research methods. The latter online surveys were carried out in November and December, 2019, and resulted with an appraisable sample of 809 questionnaires. As for the method, descriptive statistics and relationship analyses were applied. More than five thousand (5050) possible relationships were examined between the closed answers of the questionnaire by Kendall’s rank correlation coefficient (τ) and Cramer’s V, depending on whether they could be measured on a nominal or ordinal scale. The results show that the content analysis of the primary research provides well determined directions for the sustainable tourism development of cycling tourism at Lake Balaton, so customer involvement seems to be a win-win situation both for the customers (tourists) and the decision makers.

In recent years, the city of Veszprém was able to obtain several significant achievements concerning its green branding: it was awarded the “Hungary in Bloom” and the “Climate Star” titles together with the “Gold” prize of the Entente Florale Europe award and the special “President’s Award for the Restoration of a Public Open Space”. This case study examines the impact and results of the preparation work and participation in national and an international green branding contests on destination marketing and city image through the analysis of the literature and structured interviews with the theme specialists of the contests. The implications of the research, based on the result of displaying the future vision of Veszprém, offer best practice advice for communities that are considering using green branding tools such as entering a horticultural contest. The results of the research confirm that a potential winning entry, apart from having an attractive cityscape, needs to meet the more novel assessment criteria of these contests as well, i.e. the development of family friendly and accessible infrastructure, multilingual tourist information and digital accessibility.

The European Capital of Culture (ECoC) title enables European citizens to learn about one another's culture, to admire the relics of their common past, and to experience the wealth of European values and the sense of belonging together. Winner cities and regions wish to sustain the effect of the title in order to maintain economic, social and cultural prosperity. Veszprém and Balaton region in Hungary won the title for 2023, which influences local and regional destination management. The aim of the research is to introduce the key role, factors, and pitfalls of local and regional stakeholders' network system and to highlight the challenges of sustainable cooperation.

The study aims to reveal the evaluation of quality of life (QOL) factors of the local residents and the owners of the second homes from a regional perspective. As a case study we analyse the second most important tourism destination of Hungary, Lake Balaton in terms of evaluation of quality of life and living space within the scope of three target groups, two groups of local residents (who live there and work there, and who live there but work elsewhere) and the owners of second homes. The authors believe that the understanding of the decisive factors of quality of life and living space is becoming increasingly important in the successful management of local governments and in the field of sustainable tourism development and tourism management as well. The authors also intend to detect and understand the differences between the target groups. One of the most important results of the article is the creation of an aggregated settlement quality of life (QOL) indicator. The research observes both objective and subjective factors based on a primary questionnaire survey conducted in 2018 resulting from a sample of 844 respondents. The results are interpreted with crosstab, correlation and variance analysis.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on numerous industries, including the event industry, resulting in widespread disruptions. The widespread cancellations of festivals have been a direct consequence of the pandemic, and, following the reopening, those that have taken place have had to implement changes in response to the new guidelines and regulations created as a result of the pandemic. In this study, we examine the experiences of festivals held in 2021 in the Veszprém–Balaton 2023 European Capital of Culture region (VEB 2023 region). The study aims to adapt the PwC Risk Management Model and identify its four pillars (1: detect; 2: protect; 3: react; 4: restore) in the case of festivals. Our study outlines how festival organizers have faced unprecedented challenges and risks (detect), how they survived in complete uncertainty (protect), what lessons they learned, and what risk management decisions they made as a challenge of the pandemic period from a consumer perspective (react). The present study utilized a qualitative research methodology and involved conducting structured interviews with a total of 19 event organizers from five different events. In addition, to gain a comprehensive understanding of the sustainable consumption habits of festival visitors, a questionnaire survey was administered yielding 1133 responses. The biggest challenges for the organizers during the times of the pandemic were uncertainty and unpredictability, with increased financial, human, and mental risks and burdens. However, the positive benefits of the pandemic period and the future developmental directions of sustainable festivals were also highlighted (e.g., small-scale, family-friendly events). Regarding the future, the aspects of greening aspirations, a need to reflect on the social-environmental criteria of sustainability, and more flexible management decisions to deal with uncertainty have emerged among the festival organizers (restore). The research has revealed that festival visitors themselves will be important allies in the introduction of sustainable measures. The research result helps festival organizers to adapt more effectively to the new socio-economic circumstances caused by the pandemic.