Gazdaság és Társadalom, 2014 (6. évfolyam, 1-4. szám)
2014 / 4. szám
62 Gazdaság & Társadalom / Journal of Economy & Society 2014. 4. szám between settlements, respondents in Hévíz and Zalakaros are much more satisfied with the image of their town, than the respondents in Kehidakustány, Lenti and Marcali. Looking at the values by respondents’ job status the the employees of Tourinform bureus and TDM organisations were the most satisfied (4.1), while the representatives of spas (3.0) and accommodation and food service providers (3.5) considered this aspect only medium level or a little better than that. The presence of returning visitors was marked very high by respondents, therefore returning visitors are generally typical for all the assessed towns and villages. The representatives of spas and of municipalities perceive the presence of these visitors more often than other respondents, but altogether every respondent group gave high scores to this aspect. Significant differences were found neither by settlement, nor by job status. Respondents were asked about their future vision of the region/settlement in 10 years time. Nearly half of the respondents imagined their place to be a developing area in the following 10 years, and expect growing visitor numbers, while the proportion of responses indicating stagnation or decline is rather low, only 10 % of the respondents. The role of TDM in the tourism of the area Respondents were asked to evaluate the performance of TDM organisations in their settlements, focusing on the key functions of such organisations: - the regional marketing activities done by the local TDM organisation, application of targeted promotional actions to various segments of tourists, complex tourism development and management activities, advice and assistance the organisation provides for preparing project proposals and managing projects, ability to attract investors to the destination, coordination and management of tourism stakeholder cooperation, - professional interest representation of tourism stakeholders, provision of trainings. Respondents were most satisfied with the interest representation of the profession and the training activities carried out by these organisations, followed by the complex tourism development activities, and the targeted promotional actions, and the coordination of the stakeholders’ cooperation. All these aspects were assessed very good, with scores above 4 on the 1 -to-5 scale. Respondents were the least satisfied with the ability of TDM organisations to attract investors, the average level of satisfaction was 3.71. There are striking differences between the settlements, the best values were found in Hévíz and Zalakaros, both above 4.0, while the poorest performance was measured in Kehidakustány, with an average value below 3.0 (Table 6).