Geological Heritage, Geotourism and Local Development in Aggtelek National Park (NE Hungary)

Geoheritage (2020) 12:5 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12371-020-00438-7 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Geological Heritage, Geotourism and Local Development in Aggtelek National Park (NE Hungary) Tamás Telbisz 1 2 1 3 3 & Péter Gruber & László Mari & Margit Kőszegi & Zsolt Bottlik & Tibor Standovár 4 Received: 6 April 2019 / Accepted: 7 January 2020 # The Author(s) 2020 Abstract We examine how geoconservation and geotourism can help the local development of an economically underdeveloped karst area. First, we briefly present the geoheritage of Aggtelek National Park, which largely overlaps the area of the Aggtelek Karst. The area is built up predominantly of Triassic limestones and dolomites. It is a typical temperate zone, medium mountain karst area with doline-dotted karst plateaus and tectonic-fluvial valleys. Besides caves, the past history of iron mining also enriches its geoheritage. Aggtelek National Park was set aside in 1985. The caves of Aggtelek Karst and Slovak Karst became part of the UNESCO World Heritage in 1995 due to the high diversity of cave types and morphology. Socially, the area of the national park is a disadvantaged border region in NE Hungary. Baradla Cave has always been a popular tourist destination, but visitor numbers fell significantly after 1985. Tourism is largely focused on Baradla Cave, and thus it can be considered “sensu lato” geotourism. Reasons for the changes in visitor numbers are discussed in this paper. Tourist motivations, the significance of geotourism and other tourism-related issues were explored in our study by questionnaire surveys and semi-structured interviews. Furthermore, the balance of geoconservation versus bioconservation is also examined. Finally, the relationship of geotourism, nature protection and local development is discussed. We conclude that the socio-economic situation of the Aggtelek Karst microregion is relatively better than that of the neighbouring regions, and this relative welfare is due to the existence of the national park and Baradla Cave. Keywords Aggtelek Karst . National park . Baradla cave . Geotourism . Rural development Introduction Tourism is one of the most quickly growing sectors in the world economy (UNWTO 2019). Within this sector, the proportion of nature-based tourism is also growing (Kuenzi and This article is part of the Topical Collection on Geoheritage and Conservation: Modern Approaches and Applications Towards the 2030 Agenda, IX ProGEO Symposium, Poland, 25–28th June, 2018 * Tamás Telbisz 1 Department of Physical Geography, Eötvös Loránd University, Pázmány Péter 1/C, Budapest 1117, Hungary 2 Aggtelek National Park, Tengerszem oldal 1, Jósvafő, Hungary 3 Department of Regional Science, Eötvös Loránd University, Pázmány Péter 1/C, Budapest 1117, Hungary 4 Department of Plant Taxonomy and Ecology, Eötvös Loránd University, Pázmány Péter 1/C, Budapest 1117, Hungary McNeely 2008; Liu et al. 2016), and geotourism as a branch of nature-based tourism is also becoming more and more important (Dowling and Newsome 2006; Dowling 2011). Tourism to national parks is on a rising trend at the global level (Balmford et al. 2009; Stemberk et al. 2018), although the scenarios vary over time and space. For example, total visitor numbers at national parks in the USA moved on a remarkable upward trend from 1945 to 1987, followed by stagnation with some fluctuations until 2013 and then a sharp increase again after that (NPS 2019). In Hungary, the total number of registered national park visitors rose from 0.9 million to 1.6 million in the period 2005 to 2017 (Pádárné Török 2018). We would note here that only tourists who visit ecotourism facilities such as visitor centres or caves are registered in Hungary. Five Hungarian national parks (Balaton-felvidéki, Bükk, DunaIpoly, Körös-Maros, Hortobágy) saw significant increases in visitor numbers during that period, while five other national parks (Aggtelek, Duna-Dráva, Fertő-Hanság, Kiskunság, Őrség), including Aggtelek National Park presented in this paper, experienced only a slight increase with occasional 5 Page 2 of 18 declines (Pádárné Török 2018). Various factors can affect visitor numbers, including the economic crisis in general, higher fuel prices (Stevens et al. 2014), visitor opinions, government policies and national park characteristics (Stemberk et al. 2018). The values and philosophy of national parks have undergone several modifications over the last century and a half (Frost and Hall 2009). In the early days, conserving pristine nature was the main goal, but the exploitation of tourism potential was also a significant aspect. The preservation of wildlife was added to the goals in the second step, especially when national parks were established on large African territories. The principles of ecological integrity and biodiversity were only formulated after World War II. The preservation of cultural landscapes and historical heritage, as well as the promotion of scientific research and education, were also mainly added to the objectives after World War II. Today, it is often experienced that bioconservation is more pronounced and receives significantly higher financial support than geoconservation (Brilha 2002; Crofts 2018; Gordon et al. 2018; Stepišnik and Trenchovska 2018). Protected areas including national parks are often located in relatively sparsely populated and less developed areas, and it is common that they are situated along national borders (Butler and Boyd 2000; Mose 2007; Frost and Hall 2009). As a result of this, it has been possible to better preserve the natural environment in these circumstances. Consequently, the idea that nature protection in otherwise disadvantaged areas should contribute to local development logically came into light (Mose 2007). Municipalities located in national parks have a higher income than those located elsewhere (Stemberk et al. 2018). This idea can be valid also for places where geoconservation is in the focus (Ateş and Ateş 2019). Former mining areas are typical for this situation as they are significant from a geoconservation point of view and at the same time they are socially depressed zones (Evans 2005). Recently, geoparks have become the flagships of geoconservation, and sustainable development is one of the main aims of geoparks (Zouros and McKeever 2004; McKeever and Zouros 2005; Farsani et al. 2011; Lazzari and Aloia 2014; Han et al. 2018). In many cases, karst terrains are economically underdeveloped areas (Telbisz et al. 2014, 2015, 2016a, 2019), but they have varied attractions from the perspective of geotourism (Dowling and Newsome 2006). As Cigna and Forti (2013) stated, caves are the most important geotouristic features in the world. In this paper, we examine Aggtelek National Park (ANP, Hungary), which was established on a well-known karst terrain, situated in a socially depressed area. Our first aim is to briefly present the geological heritage of ANP. Second, we aim to (...truncated)