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received: 2019-08-25                  DOI 10.19233/ASHS.2020.18
THE ROLE OF NÁDASDY CASTLE IN TOURISM OF SÁRVÁR – THE 
APPEARANCE OF DISABLED PEOPLE IN CULTURAL TOURISM
Borbála GONDOS
Edutus University, Tourism Department, 11-13 Villányi road, 1114 Budapest, Hungary 
e-mail: gondos.borbala@edutus.hu 
Gábor WIRTH
Edutus University, Tourism Department, 11-13 Villányi road, 1114 Budapest, Hungary 
e-mail: wirth.gabor@edutus.hu
ABSTRACT
In our study we are examining the sustainable tourism utilization of Nádasdy Castle and its role in the tourism 
of the spa town of Sárvár, which is becoming more and more well-known in Western Hungary because of its 
outstanding historical-cultural value, as a sustainable development of one of Hungary’s most important sights. In 
order to explore the future development possibilities of the castle, known as the symbol of the city, it is essential to 
analyze the development tendencies determining the tourism of Sárvár and the tourist area of the settlement. The 
fundamental goal of our research is to answer the question of what priorities can be developed in tourism of Sárvár 
in the future. Among the segments forming the tourist destination of the city, we are particularly concerned about 
those ones, which are in connection with history or culture, and which are interested in the increasing number of 
people with disabilities in the tourism market. Accessible tourism is an added value of sustainable development 
of cultural heritage.  In our research we used both quantitative data analysis and qualitative methods, the existing 
secondary data were complemented with the primary data collection with the city’s tourism space, attractions, 
local economy, and with the city’s tourist target groups, including disabled people. 
Keywords: sustainability, development, cultural tourism, accessibility, people with disabilities
IL RUOLO DEL CASTELLO DI NÁDASDY NEL TURISMO DI SÁRVÁR – L’ASPETTO DEI 
DISABILI NEL TURISMO CULTURALE
SINTESI
Nel saggio esaminiamo la stazione balneare dell’Ungheria occidentale nello Sárvár che sta diventando sempre 
piú conosciuta a livello internazionale, soprattutto grazie al notevole valore storico culturale del castello dei 
Nádasdy, sia per la sua utilizzazione turistica sostenibile che per il ruolo che esso gioca nel turismo della cittá. 
Nella ricerca delle possibilitá di sviluppo del castello, conosciuto come simbolo della cittá nell’immediato futuro, 
risulta indispensabile l’analisi delle tendenze rilevanti dello sviluppo turistico di Sárvár e dell’area turistica della 
cittá. Lo scopo principale della nostra ricerca è di trovare le risposte alla seguante domanda: quali sono le possibili 
prioritá per il futuro sviluppo del turismo di Sárvár? Tra i gruppi destinatari del turismo cittadino ci occupiamo 
in particolare delle persone che si interessano alla storia e alla cultura e, inoltre, delle persone disabili che sono 
sempre più frequenti nel turismo. Nella nostra ricerca abbiamo adoperato sia l’analisi quantitativa dei dati che i 
metodi qualitativi. In tal modo abbiamo completato i dati secondari con la raccolta di dati primari rigurado l’area 
turistica, le attrazioni, l’economia locale, i gruppi destinatari turistici della cittá, soprattutto le persone disabili.
Parole chiave: sostenibilità, sviluppo, turismo culturale, accessibilità, persone con disabilità
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INTRODUCTION
In our study we are examining the role of Nádasdy 
Castle in Sárvár in tourism, because this building is 
still a symbol of the city and tells a lot about the busy 
history of Western Hungary. 
This paper about the role of the Nádasdy Castle is 
going to fill in a gap in the field of interdisciplinary exa-
mination not having been discussed in any monograph 
or publication yet. The tourism functions and the role 
of the settlement network in this region have already 
been discussed in comprehensive analyses (Beluszky, 
1999; Darabos & Gyuricza, 2011). The settlement Sár-
vár has been analyzed in different monographs (Molnár 
et al., 2000; Csapó, 2010) and we can learn about the 
touristic role of the bath and the wellness-hotels from 
Köbli (2017). The research of Palkovits (2010) shows 
the development of the local economy in Sárvár.
The aim of our research is to answer the question 
of how the castle can be used for sustainable tourism. 
“Sustainability principles refer to the environmental, 
economic, and socio-cultural aspects of tourism deve-
lopment, and a suitable balance must be established 
between these three dimensions to guarantee its long-
-term sustainability.”1 In order to explore the role and 
potential of Nádasdy Castle in tourism, we need to 
examine the direction of development of Sárvár consi-
dering the town as a tourist destination. It is important 
to emphasize and also examine the visitors (within the 
people with reduced mobility), their motivation and 
attractions. People with disabilities have recently come 
to the center of attention of certain developments in 
Hungary, including tourism. Accessibility is considered 
a basic requirement in case of each development and 
investment, so people with disabilities can access all 
the institutions of the resorts. In our study we are also 
examining the accessibility of the Nádasdy Castle as a 
cultural attraction for people with disabilities. 
INTRODUCTION OF SÁRVÁR AND 
NÁDASDY CASTLE
Sárvár is located in Vas County near Szombathely, 
in the Region of Western Hungary, and it is one of the 
most popular spa towns in Hungary. The population 
of the city is close to 15,000, which has recently been 
decreasing. Sárvár is today famous for its spa and well-
ness spa, which makes it an ideal location for wellness 
hotels. The city was named after the clay castle which 
was fortified in the early middle ages with a plank and 
earthen wall. The castle was rebuilt in the XVI. century 
and expanded with five Italian bastions (Csorba et al., 
2014). The castle is primarily known for the landlords 
of the area, the Nádasdy family, whose members belong 
to the Hungarian heroes of the anti-Turkish wars. The 
1 UNWTO Sustainable tourism: https://www.unwto.org/sustainable-development (last access: 18. 06. 2018).
Nádasdy Historical Festival commemorates the victory 
over Turkish troops besieging the castle in 1532 which 
is held every year. Another important curiosity is the 
surviving love letters of Tamás Nádasdy and Orsolya 
Kanizsai, and the fact that Countess Elizabeth Báthory, 
who is known from vampire history, spent part of her 
life in the castle as wife of Ferenc Nádasdy (Bessenyei, 
2005). In the XX. century many industrial plants were 
established in the city (Beluszky, 1999). The year 1961 
marked an important milestone in the history of Sárvár: 
when drilling oil, thermal water broke into the surface, 
thus the exploration of the thermal water contributed 
greatly to the development of tourism in Sárvár. In the 
1980s thermal water played an increasingly important 
role in the economy of the city and a socialist brand 
was created, the Sárvár Thermal Crystal which was 
sold first to the older generation. The opening of the 
spa and wellness spa in 2002 marked a turning point 
in the tourism of the city, and since then the demand 
for quality services has increased. To examine the role 
of the Nádasdy Castle in tourism in Sárvár we need to 
analyze the city’s tourism space and offer. First in our 
research we examined the characteristics of tourism in 
Sárvár, after which we asked what role the Nádasdy 
Castle can play in building the tourist brand and in 
the life of people with disabilities as a cultural tourist 
attraction. Finally, based on the results of the research, 
we highlighted the possibility of using the existing po-
tentials of tourism more efficiently. The Nádasdy Castle 
and its affiliated Ferenc Nádasdy Museum have long 
been owned by the municipality, which also influences 
development opportunities and directions. 
Financing revitalisation and management of 
cultural heritage buildings are of crucial impor-
tance. The lack of business approach in culture 
often leads to misunderstanding of culture as 
an art and not as a generator to produce new 
creative products. Consequently, the cultural he-
ritage buildings lack financing from the private 
sector (Turi, 2019, 174).
ACCESSIBILITY AND ACCESSIBLE TOURISM
In most cases, the argument against accessibility 
is that it affects only a few people, so it is not worth 
dealing with. Not only people with different disabili-
ties need to be considered, but also the elderly and 
families with little children using stroller, or people 
with temporary problems (for example accident) 
(Gondos & Nárai, 2019). The increase of the average 
life expectancy of the population on the earth and 
the motorization (accidents) also contribute to the 
increasing number of people in this segment, so deve-
loping and operating accessible tourism is becoming 
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essential. Nowadays, more than one billion people 
live with some kind of disabilities and their number 
tends to increase in the forthcoming years due to the 
growing average age of the citizens.2
The concepts of physical accessibility and acces-
sibility are interrelated with each other and they have 
priorities in building the environment. In Hungary, 
the requirement of accessibility is defined in the 
„1997 LXXVIII. law, which defines the shaping and 
protection of the built environment”, and based on 
this rule „Accessible: it means building an  enviro-
nment, which provides convenient, secure, and self-
-contained access for all the people, including those 
who have health problems or groups of people who 
need special tools or technical solutions to do so”.3 
The most important of all these criteria is that people 
with disabilities can use the built environment com-
fortably, safely and independently. As the technical 
possibilities for accessibility have evolved, the UN 
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 
uses the term accessibility (Gondos & Nárai, 2019). 
While making something accessible, the basic 
requirement is that not only the aspects of people with 
physical disabilities have to be paid attention to, but 
also the needs of people with other disabilities, too. 
For example, a blind and visually impaired person 
needs to have signs on the sidewalk (e.g. a guide bar), 
and signal light sounds, but they also need reading 
facilities with the help of Braille writing e.g. a menu 
or tactile map or attraction. Deaf people and those 
who are hard of hearing require differently processed 
information with strong visual information tran-
smission such as flashing lights, or transmitting the 
necessary information with the help of an induction 
loop/amplifier (Gondos & Nárai, 2019). Based on the 
2 UNWTO Accessible tourism: http://ethics.unwto.org/en/content/accessible-tourism (last access: 18. 06. 2018).
3 https://net.jogtar.hu/jogszabaly?docid=99700078.TV 10-11.oldal (last access: 30. 06. 2019).
above mentioned research, was also examined the 
Nádasdy Castle in terms of accessibility, the results of 
which are presented below.
GOALS AND METHODS
The analysis of statistical data was an important 
starting point of our research. Considering that a si-
gnificant part of the revenues from tourism is realized 
in the tourism supra-structure (Michalkó, 2012), it was 
also necessary to examine the enterprises belonging 
to tourism supra-structure. Similarly to the national 
trends, the local economic structure of Sárvár is also 
dominated by small enterprises, so our survey also 
focuses on small enterprises operating here. 
The aim of the research was to examine the proces-
ses, the problems of the local economy and its relation 
to tourism, including the exploration of the possibilities 
of the Nádasdy Castle in Sárvár. The survey was con-
ducted within the tourism space of Sárvár, based on 
the experience of the manager of Sárvár TDM and the 
company managers operating in the city, with special 
regard to the experience and location of the managers 
of gastronomic enterprises.
The questionnaire was conducted from 06. 06. 
2018 to 09. 06. 2018 and was conducted with the ma-
nagement and owners of 47 small enterprises operating 
in the tourism zone of Sárvár. The questionnaire con-
sisted of 12 questions concerning the local economy, 
spatial relationship of enterprises, and the situation and 
impact of tourism. Despite taking few samples, the re-
search has, nevertheless, led to a representative result, 
with 47 responses well above 10 percent of businesses 
within the tourist zone of the settlement and belonging 
to the tourist supra-structure.
Figure 1: Number of guests and guest nights in Sárvár in wellness hotels between 2006-
2012 (data based on HCSO, based on own editing).
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The quantitative research was complemented 
by a qualitative research: in the summer of 2018 we 
conducted a structured interview with Ferenc Haller, 
TDM Manager of Sárvár and Zoltán Takács, Director 
of the Nádasdy Museum. The questions asked by both 
professionals concerned the effects of seasonality, the 
development plans of the castle and the city, and the 
operation, structure and image of the local economy. 
We compared our results with the local development 
ideas.
RESULTS
According to the number of guest nights, Sárvár 
ranked as the 8th most popular settlement in Hunga-
ry in 2017, with 483,782 guest nights, and 290.975 
guest nights according to the number of nights spent 
by foreigners (KSH, 2018). The popularity of Sárvár’s 
tourism today is determined by the popularity of 
the spa and wellness spa hotels, which rely on this 
resource.
Until 2009, there was only one wellness hotel in 
Sárvár, but since 2010, recognizing the needs of the 
market, more and more have been established, and in 
2012 there were already six wellness hotels. Of course, 
the increase in hotel numbers also meant a significant 
increase in capacity. The negative impact of the 2009 
economic crisis had a negative effect on the number of 
guests and the number of guest nights spent in Figure 
1, but Sárvár’s tourism showed an increase again from 
the following year. In 2012, the six wellness hotels 
registered 118,056 guests, including 74,193 foreigners, 
representing almost 63 percent of the total. These data 
show that Sárvár was already known abroad as a desti-
nation in 2012.
4 Magyar Turisztikai Ügynökség (2019): https://mtu.gov.hu/documents/prod/Kereskedelmi_szallashelyek_adatai_2018.pdf (last ac-
cess: 28. 07. 2019).
The average length of stay was 2.6 in 2006, only 
2.37 nights in 2010, and two years later 2.4 nights 
(according to the 2013 data of the HCSO). Based on 
these, it can be assumed that weekend and long wee-
kend stays are decisive based on the time distribution 
of wellness hotel guests. Ferenc Haller, TDM Manager 
of Sárvár, confirmed our proposal in an interview with 
him, adding that the organization and stakeholders are 
already addressing the question of how the city can 
attract more tourists on weekdays in the future. It is 
also important to note that Sárvár’s success can be 
explained, among other things, by European tourism 
trends: demand for health and wellness tourism services 
across Europe has increased, one of the reasons being 
the demographic structure of Europe (Aubert, 2011). 
According to local TDM data, the average length of 
stay of foreign guests in 2018 is 3.4 nights, which is 
above the Hungarian average (2.6 nights).4
The years 2011, 2012 and 2013 were especially su-
ccessful for tourism in Sárvár: according to the number 
of guest nights, the city of West Hungary was ranked 
7th among the settlements of Hungary. Despite the 
decline in 2011-2013, the number of visitors to the spa 
and wellness spa is always above 700,000 from 2011. 
In 2016 has the most visitors in the spa so far (Figure 2).
The geographic position of Sárvár is very important 
for the success of Sárvár’s tourism: the city is within a 
few hours from several European cities and capitals: 
132 km from Vienna, 134 kilometers from Bratislava, 
208 kilometers from Budapest and 261 from Brno.
Today the historic city has gained international at-
tention due to its thermal and spa baths. Although, spa 
and wellness tourism are also considered fashionable 
touristic products, Sárvár offers many more facilities 
for its visitors. In order to determine the role of the 
Figure 2: Number of guests in Sárvár between 2010-2016 (data based on HCSO, based on 
own editing).
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Nádasdy Castle, we first defined the touristic area of 
Sárvár. The available literature on settlement and tou-
rism development defines the tourist areas according 
to the following criteria: „In practice, tourist areas are 
delimited by taking particular account of the landscape, 
the accommodation, the cultural offer and the tourism 
demand for the accommodation” (LEP, 2005, 8).
In case of Sárvár, besides the primary tourist faci-
lities, the gastronomic and commercial units, which 
belong to the tourist supra-structure, also provided an 
important point of reference. Ferenc Haller, the TDM 
manager of the city also helped with the delineation of 
the city’s tourism space as the manager and owner of 
the 24 small businesses in hospitality and commercial 
facilities. The tourist area of Sárvár is marked with red 
color on the following map.
Figure 3 shows that within the tourist area of  Sárvár, 
the Nádasdy Castle (1 blue) in the city center and the 
spa facilities (1, 4, 6 green) are quite far apart. The 
most visited tourist attractions in Sárvár are the spa and 
wellness spa and its wellness hotels and the Boating 
Lake, which are located further away from the city 
center, in the southeastern part of the town’s tourist 
area. Comparing the number of visitors to the spa and 
wellness spa and the Nádasdy Museum, we can note 
the following: In 2016, the spa and wellness spa regi-
stered 768,868 visitors and the castle museum 27,294 
visitors. In the same year, the Czechs spent the largest 
number of foreign guest nights – 135,961 – in Sárvár, 
Austria ranked second place with 82,720 guest nights, 
and Germany in third place with 25,674 guest nights. 
Tourists from Slovakia spent 17,402 nights in the settle-
ment (information from TDM Sárvár). According to the 
TDM Manager and the Castle Museum Director, very 
few bath guests visit the castle (Haller, 2018; Takács, 
2018).
In addition to tourism infrastructure, tourism 
supra-structure also generates very significant local 
revenues. „The tourism supra-structure is made up of 
complementary facilities that are based on general in-
frastructure and serve visitor-oriented needs” (Fischer, 
2009, 75).
The surveyed business executives and owners of 
the companies provided information on the current 
situation of local tourism and also its main problems 
and opportunities of development. According to the re-
Figure 3: Touristic space of Sárvár (map of Sárvár Tourist & TDM Nonprofit Ltd., based on 
own editing).
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sults of a survey carried out in the tourism space of the 
city, the seasonality only marginally affected the small 
enterprises. However, we should note that seasonality 
in tourism causes difficulties for more than 30% of the 
surveyed small enterprises. Comparing Gábor Wirth’s 
previous research on settlements of Lake Velence, we 
can conclude that seasonality in Sárvár determines the 
local economy to a lesser extent than in the settlements 
at Lake Velence (Wirth, 2016). This is probably due to 
the popularity of the spa and spa facilities in Sárvár, 
which is not so much associated with the high season 
in summer. not like beaches, cycle paths and other 
tourist facilities at Lake Velence.
Based on the results of the research which were 
presented above, the question still arises to what extent 
seasonality determines the operation of Nádasdy Castle 
and its role in the tourism. Zoltán Takács, the Director 
of Nádasdy Castle, confirmed in an interview that only 
a very small number of wellness hotels and spa visitors 
choose to visit the castle and the castle museum, which 
can be explained by the relatively long distance bet-
ween the castle and the spa facilities. The director also 
said that the castle and the spa facilities attract quite 
different segments, so the management of the castle 
has not been able to take advantage of the increasing 
number of tourists so far (Takács, 2018).
The management of the castle would like to work 
more closely with other tourist servicers in the future, in 
particular with the spa and wellness spa and wellness 
hotels. Furthermore, it is also essential to continue su-
ccessful cooperation with the local TDM organization 
(Takács, 2018).
The high level of awareness of the local TDM 
organization indicates that tourism organizations of 
the city are active in marketing: 72% of the small 
enterprises knows about the organization and 33% 
works with it or has a good relationship with it. 45% 
of small enterprises in hospitality works with the local 
TDM organization.
The long-term goal of the museum director is to 
make Nádasdy Castle a major player in Sárvár’s tou-
rism in the future. The Integrated Urban Development 
Strategy between 2014-2020 also states that the cultu-
ral and built relics of the city should not be neglected 
(Fülöp et al, 2015)
Renovation of Nádasdy Castle’s as well as its hea-
ting and other energy supply system, is one of the most 
important projects which is realized in the center of the 
city. The city also plans to create a large meeting room 
in the castle (Haller, 2018)
For the castle’s management the events could mean 
an important breakthrough: 12,7 percent of the small 
enterprises imagine developing tourism in the city by 
organizing additional events, expecting the number of 
customers/visitor to expand. In addition to the econo-
mic stimulus of the events, do not forget about the po-
sitive social effects. Each of these events will motivate 
the local population by stimulating community life.
We can realize when analyzing the number of visi-
tors of the castle museum, that this historical attraction 
is mainly attractive for domestic visitors. The number 
of foreign visitors was the highest in 2011 and 2017, 
about 5,000, which is quite small compared with the 
number of domestic visitors (Figure 5). If we look at 
the monthly visitor numbers over the years, we can 
see that the seasonality determines the attendance of 
Ferenc Nádasdy Museum very strongly. The highest 
visitor numbers are clearly concentrated in the high 
season (July, August), which is probably due to the 
events - Castle Meetings, Nádasdy Historical Festival, 
International Folklore Days – which take place in and 
around the castle courtyard. The number of visitors of 
the Museum has been increasing since 2015 (Table 1).
The management keeps two goals in their mind for 
the future: the castle museum must be operated econo-
mically in the future, which requires innovative attracti-
ons, visitor management and marketing. The analysis of 
the statistical data also indicates that foreign tourists and 
guests of the spa and wellness spa should be more inten-
sively addressed to. The entrance fees of the museums in 
Hungary are not too high, which was confirmed by the 
director of the museum. He said that the management 
did not dare to raise the price, although the visitors 
Figure 5: Number of visitors and foreign visitors of Fe-
renc Nádasdy Museum (data based on Ferenc Nádasdy 
Museum, based on own edition).
Figure 4: The impact of seasonality on small enter-
prises in the tourist supra-structure (N=47).
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would pay higher entrance fees, but the events and the 
exhibition are not widely known yet (Takács, 2018).
In the growing market of tourism, competition 
between destinations will also become more intense, 
that is why settlement branding is becoming more 
and more important and it is an essential part of mar-
keting. Potential visitors of the town – if not always 
pronounced – are looking for a USP specification for 
the destination offering an experience or service only 
available at that certain location (Kreutzer, 2012). 
For selling a tourist destination an effective presence 
on the Internet is unavoidable: „The Internet makes 
it easier to meet demand and supply. Here where the 
information is found and displayed makes it easier for 
searchers and suppliers to find a niche market and 
niche products” (Kreutzer, 2012, 40).
Table 1: The number of visitors of Ferenc Nádasdy Museum by year and month (2014–2017) (data based on Ferenc 
Nádasdy Museum, based on own editing).
 Jan. Febr. March April May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. All
2014 824 940 1224 1693 3054 2344 4038 5853 1798 2467 1091 768 26094
2015 710 788 1258 1886 3539 2021 4056 4909 1970 2251 988 1000 25376
2016 920 1189 2343 1397 3724 2330 4008 4877 1905 1861 1667 1073 27294
2017 797 1977 2158 2750 3986 2619 4302 5022 1871 2213 1747 1437 30879
Image 1: Entrance of Nádasdy Castle (Photo: calendula, Pixabay).
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During our research we also examined the online 
tourism product marketing of Sárvár. For a few years, the 
city’s slogan is „Experience and tradition was, the spa 
town is now a crystal clear experience”. In the current 
urban image film (Kriskó, 2015), the castle and popular 
spa and wellness facilities are linked together, emotio-
nally and logically linked to each other, to display and 
„sell”: they are trying to reach families with children, 
young couples and older generations with wellness and 
spa experiences, events and nature themes.
In the future, it would be advisable to use new the-
mes to sell the castle. The historical events of 1532, or 
the love of Tamás Nádasdy and Orsolya Kanizsai could 
perhaps lay the foundations for an innovative attraction 
management. The literature also confirms that cultural 
and related tourist attractions can be most efficiently 
sold by stories requiring the use of the most modern 
interpretation techniques and methods (Rátz, 2011). 
With the help of historical themes and events, as well 
as good transport links, Hungarians in Upper Hungary 
(present-day Slovakia) who are interested in the history 
of Hungary and who are related to the motherland 
could also be addressed to.
Therefore, planning to invest in the meaningful use of 
the cultural heritage by the PPP necessarily requires 
not only the knowledge of the social and historical 
reality, which is reflected in, among other things, 
heritage elements and practices for revitalising and 
managing heritage assets for different purposes, but 
also the legal and financial framework of the existing 
PPP policy (Turi, 2019, 174). 
The future tourism development of Sárvár should be 
based on the principle of advertising the spa facilities 
together with the Nádasdy Castle, complementing and 
even expanding the holiday packages with other at-
tractions of the city can become a marketable tourism 
product in long term.
We have also examined the accessibility of the 
castle for people with reduced mobility and the 
possibilities for disabled people to visit he exhibiti-
on. Image 1 and 2 show that while it is possible to 
approach the attraction (including attending events 
held within the walls of the castle) the presence 
of the stairs makes it difficult for them to view the 
exhibition so people with disabilities are not advised 
to visit this cultural attraction. If we think about the 
future development of the city, it is obvious that the 
management and development of the spa facilities 
and the Nádasdy Castle could become a marketa-
ble tourist product long term, so it would be worth 
Image 2: Entrance of Ferenc Nádasdy Museum (Photo: 
authors).
Image 3: Nádasdy Castle (Source: www.vasmegye.hu).
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considering the accessibility of the castle and the 
solutions of mobility within it.
We contacted the TDM organization in Sárvár to 
ask for visitors’ data of the Nádasdy Castle to show 
the percentage of visitors people with disabilities, 
but unfortunately we had negative response. We also 
contacted the head of the Ferenc Nádasdy Museum 
again about the issue, but they could not provide us 
with relevant usable data so we can only rely on our 
assumption that a negligible proportion of the visitors 
to the castle are people with disabilities.
CONCLUSION
Nowadays, we can say that the Nádasdy Castle is 
an important component, but it is not a basic element 
of Sárvár as a tourist brand. The castle also plays an im-
portant role in local development plans, but in order to 
Image 4: Nádasdy Castle from above (Source: www.varak.hu).
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increase the castle’s tourist role, this historic attraction 
must be turned into an attraction. The location of the 
Nádasdy Castle within the tourist area of Sárvár seems 
to be much more important for planning its future than 
its location within the city.
The economic operation of the castle is a major 
challenge for the future to increase the number of 
visitors. This is possible if the visitor and attraction 
management becomes much more careful, organized 
and the new market segments can be addressed to. 
Although they are totally different segments, visitors of 
the spa complexes should be more intensively targeted 
at and the number of one daily visitors interested in 
history, culture and events need to be attracted into the 
museum. The management of the castle should coope-
rate more actively with many touristic companies and 
organizations creating a well-functioning network. 
The results of the research also confirm that the most 
important task of the castle management is to build a 
strong brand, which can be helped by the organization 
of even more attractive tourist events.
In our study, concerning accessible tourism, we 
wanted to show how important accessibility is.
Although the implementation of accessibility in the 
segments of transport or tourism is an indispensable 
necessity for the involvement of disabled people, we 
have shown that it is a much larger segment simultane-
ously providing opportunities and comfort. Visiting the 
castle is difficult for disabled people, but because of 
the spa town of Sárvár, it would be worth focusing on 
the disabled segment as well, as retirees, or even those 
undergoing periodic rehabilitation treatments would 
like to visit the castle, museum and exhibition.
Tourism of Sárvár only through the continuation of 
the tourism infra- and supra-structure development, 
the cooperation of the enterprises of the infra- and 
supra-infrastructure of tourism and the other tourism 
stakeholders, the baths, healing, events and nature, 
not least the professional management of the local 
TDM organization be able to develop a complex 
tourist product while maintaining or strengthening 
its existing market position. In vision of Sárvár is to 
turn the city into an international health resort that 
will become a residential and high-quality service 
for the citizens and visitors of Sárvár, conscious de-
velopment of the city for high quality services, good 
environmental conditions and they are based on the 
local characteristics (Fülöp et al, 2015). Tourism can 
only be effectively developed with other sectors of the 
economy. 
This requires efficient use of EU funds for invest-
ment, addressing the missing infrastructures, 
encouraging cooperation between economic 
operators and generally favoring the knowledge 
economy. An inclusive and supportive attitude 
of city residents and decision-makers is a prereq-
uisite for creating a competitive economy (Fülöp 
et al, 2015, 9).
Reading the current integrated settlement de-
velopment strategy of the city, we did not find any 
reference to the accessibility of the settlement or the 
individual attractions, including the Nádasdy Castle, 
which would be necessary considering the above 
described conditions.
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VLOGA NADASDIJSKEGA GRADU V TURIZMU MESTA SÁRVÁR – VIDIK OSEB S 
POSEBNIMI POTREBAMI V KULTURNEM TURIZMU
Borbála GONDOS
Univerza Edutus, Oddelek za turizem, 11-13 Villányi road, 1114 Budimpešta, Madžarska
e-mail: gondos.borbala@edutus.hu 
Gábor WIRTH
Univerza Edutus, Oddelek za turizem, 11-13 Villányi road, 1114 Budimpešta, Madžarska 
e-mail: wirth.gabor@edutus.hu
POVZETEK 
V naši raziskavi preučujemo trajnostno turistično rabo gradu Nádasdy in njegovo vlogo v turizmu zdraviliškega 
mesta Sárvár, ki je na zahodnem Madžarskem zaradi svoje izjemne zgodovinsko-kulturne vrednosti vse bolj znan 
kot primer trajnostnega razvoja ene najpomembnejših znamenitosti Madžarske. Za preučitev prihodnjih razvojnih 
možnosti gradu, znanega kot simbol mesta, je treba analizirati razvojne tendence, ki določajo turizem Sárvárja 
in turistično območje naselja. Temeljni cilj naše raziskave je odgovoriti na vprašanje, katere prednostne naloge 
je mogoče razviti v turizmu Sárvárja v prihodnosti. Med segmenti, ki tvorijo turistično destinacijo mesta, je naša 
pozornost še posebej namenjena tistim, ki so povezani z zgodovino ali kulturo in ki se odzivajo na vse večje število 
oseb s posebnimi potrebami na turističnem trgu. Dostopni turizem je dodana vrednost trajnostnega razvoja kulturne 
dediščine. V raziskavi smo uporabili kvantitativno analizo podatkov in kvalitativne metode, obstoječe sekundarne 
podatke pa smo dopolnili z zbiranjem primarnih podatkov z mestnim turističnim prostorom, zanimivostmi, lokalnim 
gospodarstvom in z mestnimi turističnimi ciljnimi skupinami, vključno z osebami s posebnimi potrebami.
Ključne besede: trajnost, razvoj, kulturni turizem, dostopnost, osebe s posebnimi potrebami
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