On the first day of the 2024 Travel Exhibition, the publisher of Turizmus.com organized a professional conference again at Hungexpo, titled "Drawing a Card for 19 in 2024." Natália Oszkó-Jakab, co-president of the Hungarian Tourism Program Foundation, spoke about the domestic event plans and expected prospects for 2024 in her closing presentation.
The co-president of the foundation explained that the foundation was established in 2020 to assist the COVID-affected event industry, working to bring together organizers and service providers of various types of events within the sector—whether cultural and tourism events, festivals, conferences, unique programs, or the realization of international sports events—and to help find solutions to the sector's comprehensive problems.
The four main pillars of MTPA's activities are research and database-building; scholarship programs and related collaborations; building domestic and international relationships; and maintaining the continuously updated Event Calendar available on the MTPA website.
The primary research goal of the foundation is to obtain a real picture of the labor market situation within the sector. In 2022, they conducted two studies in collaboration with Hétfa Research Institute: one examining the training structure in the domestic event sector, and the other assessing the skills and training related to the sector in the context of the labor market.
Since the most significant problem faced by the event industry following the pandemic was labor shortages, MTPA created the RaKÉTa (Rendezvényipari Képzési Támogatás) scholarship program to assist the profession. The program offered scholarship positions for event organizer and service provider training courses at several adult education partner institutions.
In the pilot semester, the program had 26 scholarship recipients at four adult education training centers. As part of the program, the foundation is also working on establishing higher education collaborations, with current partners including Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest University of Economics, and Budapest Metropolitan University. Those interested can find information about event-related training programs on the digital RaKÉTa map available on the MTPA website.
Natália Oszkó-Jakab mentioned that in 2021, the foundation initiated the ReStart conference, which has been held annually since then to allow professionals working in cultural, business, and sports event organization to meet and discuss experiences from the past period.
MTPA's monthly MeetUps also serve as platforms for experience sharing and education. Their primary goal is for industry professionals to meet the key players in the event industry and exchange experiences on topics affecting the entire event sector during presentations and roundtable discussions.
Beyond domestic networking, MTPA's Visibility program aims to showcase Hungarian event industry players, trends, major events beyond the country's borders, thus aiding in the international visibility of domestic players, building partnerships, and business acquisition.Finally, Natália Oszkó-Jakab drew attention to MTPA's up-to-date Event Calendar, which gathers Hungarian cultural, sports, business, and community events in one easily searchable platform.
