Repositioning Budapest’s tourism milieu for a post-Covid-19 period : visual content analysis

Abstract

In order to propose a repositioning toolkit, this research addresses the essence of the daytime tourism milieu of the Hungarian capital Budapest’s nightly party zone and formulates the following two research questions: (1) What are the available elements of the daytime tourism milieu of Budapest’s party zone? and (2) How can this milieu enhance tourist experience for leveraging a sense of place in a future post-Covid-19 era? The data for this research were collected with the help of 85 undergraduates, who were given the task of taking 3 photos, as if they were tourists, aiming to capture the best reflection of the daytime tourism milieu of Budapest’s party zone. A database of 255 photos was analysed through visual content analysis. Additionally, each image was assigned a location of the photo, five hashtags and a short description. The descriptions of the photos were analysed by Python programming and calculations. The findings show the most important research outcomes concerning Budapest’s party zone, focusing on the daytime values of the district. The research identified the “creative milieu”’, “Jewish heritage milieu” and “gastronomic milieu” as the most important daytime profiles of the party zone. Based on the findings, the authors propose a repositioning toolkit and a strategy which, on the one hand, will develop a stronger sense of place in the case of the tourism milieu of Budapest’s party zone and, on the other hand, will position the party zone not only as a place of nightlife but also as a venue of daytime tourism.