How can major domestic festivals be more sustainable?

Author: Tünde Taxner, cover photo: Zsolt Barbócz, economist

It’s a great experience, it’s part of the summer, it’s someone’s whole summer. But it is also economically significant, accounting for almost one percent of domestic GDP.” Festival-going is a major cultural experience for young adults, but it is also a major segment of the entertainment industry, attracting large investments, a lot of money and international visitors. Yet there is also a downside. “All in all, festival tourism is a polluting thing, but so is the festival itself, whether you look at the performers or the participants,” says Krisztina Czillahó, a Corvinus alumna who examined the sustainability of major Hungarian festivals in her PhD thesis.

Krisztina was awarded first place in the 2021 OTDK (National Scientific Student Conference) in the Economics Section in the Tourism-Hospitality-Sports section. Her paper section of this year’s 35th OTDK would have been held in Sopron. ” I regret that I missed out on the personal experience, but overall it was a positive experience for me,” says Krisztina, who wrote her winning essay in spring 2020, when universities switched to distance learning. “We had a difficult course with so many participants,” she says, “because everything was online, which made it difficult to search for literature and to keep in touch with her supervisor, Dr. Ivett Pinke-Sziva.  Krisztina’s research, however was so comprehensive and thorough that she was appointed to head the section.