Befogadott turizmus?
Integrated tourism?

Space Formation and Closer Encounters in the Early Days of Holiday Culture in a Small Town near Lake Balaton

Summary/Abstract: The case study analyses some aspects of 1960s and 1970s holiday culture in Balatonakali, a town practically unknown to the wider public before the socialist era. The analysis is based on recollections, family archives, photographs, and archival sources. The earliest holiday community of Balatonakali, settling from the mid-1960s onward, followed planning guidelines but designed their “second homes” according to their own concepts. Although the town’s modernization was not generated by the local expansion of tourism, it was essential for the growing demands of the sector, which thus can be considered as a catalyst of the process. The permanent population, recognizing the new residents as a potential source of income, responded to the appearance of tourism from the very beginning. However, the contact zones between the two communities have never been restricted to the domains of work and service industry, and locals and vacationers are closely interconnected in more informal ways even now. After the first decades – fraught with tension, albeit without serious conflicts – the shared spaces have irreversibly transformed into “touristic spaces.”

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