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Bükki Kör
Bükki Kör - Community for the Tourism of Miskolc and the Bükk
In the spring of 2023, caterers, winemakers, hoteliers, event organisers and tour operators joined forces to build a professional, civil community based on the protection of values in the geographical area bordered by Miskolc and the Bükk Mountains, called the Bükki Kör (Bükk Circle).
The members of the association are committed to promoting Miskolc and the Bükk as a tourist destination of outstanding quality and unique tourist attraction.
It is our common mission that this unity, with its unique historical and cultural heritage, created by the millennia-long interweaving of the city and the mountainous region, should finally gain its rightful place on the tourist map of Hungary and become one of the most visited regions of the country.
The members of the Bükk Circle (Miskolc's renowned and value-creating tourism and hospitality entrepreneurs), recognizing the opportunities following the pandemic and trusting in the power of community cooperation, want to make a difference and use their professional knowledge and local patriotic commitment to develop Miskolc's tourism.
At the same time, as climate change, global warming, pollution and the energy crisis are increasingly challenging the tourism and hospitality sector worldwide, including Hungary, the only answer to today's issues, according to Miskolc tourism experts, is sustainability. Our aim is that the city, which is situated at the foot of the Bükk Mountains, with its unique geological and thermal features, successful gastronomy based on the Bükk forests, and a wine district that is outstanding from the historic city centre, should be among the first in Hungary to be certified as a sustainable tourist destination, and thus set a good example for other Hungarian destinations and service providers in terms of sustainable tourism.
In this spirit, we started the work in 2023, and the first results have already been achieved: it is a great pride that the project of the city of Miskolc, which was nominated on the initiative of the Bükk Circle, could be included in the TOP100 sustainable tourism good practices of the world!
For the first time, a Hungarian city has won a prize in the "Sustainable Tourism Good Practice" world competition organised by the international sustainability rating organisation Green Destinations. The competition was prepared by Innotime Ltd. on behalf of the Bükk Circle, and the application was developed and submitted by MIDMAR Ltd.
Competing in the Green Destinations Top100 competition has also proved to be a good practice to show that great results can be achieved by the cooperation of a destination's tourism development NGO and the municipality/town council, which can serve to build the city.
Another impressive achievement of the Bükk Circle in its inaugural year was the submission of an application to the Visegrad Fund, which supports innovative regional cooperation and knowledge sharing in the Visegrad Four countries. As part of the winning application, we will organise an international tourism and gastronomy conference in Lillefüred in April 2024. Professionals and media from the V4 countries will be invited to learn about good practices for redefining tourism in Miskolc, based on the "edible forest" and sustainable operation of service providers.
Our conference will also be the official event of Green Destinations in Hungary: on day 0 of the conference, the first Central European Green Destinations regional workshop will take place, where we are expecting participants from Slovakia and Romania, in addition to Hungarian destinations and tourism service providers. International Green Destinations experts are expected to participate in the workshop and the conference.
The conference is also another opportunity for dialogue and cooperation between the civil sector and the Municipality: for Miskolc it is an outstanding opportunity that it has recently been selected as one of the one hundred cities in the European Union that can participate in the Climate Neutral and Smart Cities mission.
At the same time, we have a shared responsibility to preserve for posterity the quality and liveability of the Szinva Valley, our home, as a tourist destination.
We hope that our common journey of sustainability will open up new dimensions to put the former city of steel on the international tourism map as a thriving tourist destination.
