Bucharest, Sep 13 (IANS): Tourism in Hungary has bounced back to the pre-pandemic level, with 16.4 million guest nights registered this summer, the Hungarian Tourism Agency (MTU) said.

This is the same level as the summer of 2019, Xinhua news agency quoted the MTU as saying.

MTU welcomed the fact that domestic tourism has maintained its momentum in recent years.

"About 10.5 million of the guest nights were spent by domestic visitors in accommodation facilities, which is 12 per cent more than the data for the summer of 2019," it said.

Hungary was able to welcome 2.5 times more international visitors this summer than in the summer of 2021, MTU added.

In 2021, the proportion of foreign visitors was 20 per cent in the three summer months (June, July and August).

Meanwhile, this year it rose to 36 per cent, accounting for nearly 6 million international guest nights.

The famous Lake Balaton retained its title as the number one destination, with more than 5.4 million guests staying there, accounting for 41 per cent of total rural accommodation turnover.

The largest proportion of guests in the countryside were Hungarian (75 per cent of total guests), while in Budapest, 83 per cent of total guests this summer were foreign tourists.

The largest numbers of tourists visiting Budapest came from the UK, Germany, the US, Israel, Italy and the Netherlands.

MTU also said that the general hotel-room occupancy rate stood at 60 per cent nationally during the three summer months.