Problem: With the increase of car traffic, transit tourism terminated in Szolnok. The potential for tourism is not realized neither by creating jobs, nor by preservation or development of tourism values. Although Szolnok is a pleasant city, there is no significant attraction which would encourage visitors to stay there for several days.
Task: To create the tourism strategy and city image strategy of Szolnok, to launch and manage the development projects given in the action plan.
Solution: As a first step we did a full image audit in Szolnok, and based on that, we created an image strategy for the city. We defined the city brand and set action areas. One of the priority areas was tourism development, where after the tourism audit was complete we created the tourism strategy of Szolnok and proposed a development plan for key and complementary attractions.
Results: The city of Szolnok has started to move towards the direction of developments specified in the strategy and the formation of the city brand has begun. In the 2007-13 EU tender period, Szolnok successfully applied for the development of key and complementary tourism attractions in the amount of 1.8 billion Hungarian Forints. The development of the projects is in progress, delivery is expected in 2015. The planned development projects of the 2014-20 tender period have also been constructed according to the image strategy.