Arts and culture industry in Hungary - facts & figures
Who is financing culture?
The Hungarian government has played a vital role in financing cultural activities, spending approximately one percent of the country’s GDP on this industry in 2023. Budgetary expenditure on culture had been increasing year-over-year in the country until 2020 when it peaked at over 670 million forints, followed by a drop in the subsequent year. However, in terms of household expenditure on recreational and cultural services, 2022 saw the highest spending in the past decade at over one trillion forints.Is the time of traditional cultural consumption over?
Increasing digital content use raises questions about whether traditional cultural consumption has come to an end in Hungary or if the stagnation is just temporary. In 2023, approximately 5.95 thousand public cultural institutes operated in the country, marking an increase compared to the previous year. However, cultural event attendance figures have not recovered to levels recorded before the COVID-19 outbreak. Specifically, the number of museum attendances peaked in 2019, while theaters recorded the highest figures in 2018. With 11 million museum visits and almost seven million theater visits in 2023, scenes of high culture still attract a considerable number of Hungarian consumers.It remains to be seen whether cultural consumption figures will reach pre-pandemic levels again. The possible reasons behind the industry’s slow recovery are increasing consumer prices as well as changing cultural consumption habits.