Boycott Hungary? I'd like to hear thoughts. (moral and political conundrum)

"For me, since about 9/12, the role of a travel writer has changed. I see the travel writer of the 21st century like the court jester of the Middle Ages. While thought of as a jokester, the jester was in a unique position to tell truth to power without being punished. Back then, kings were absolute rulers — detached from the lives of their subjects. The court jester would mix it up with people that the king would never meet. That was his job. The jester would play in the gutter with the riffraff. Then, having fingered the gritty pulse of society, he'd come back into the court and tell the king the truth. "Your Highness, the people are angered by the cost of mead. They are offended by the queen's parties. The pope has more influence than you. Everybody is reading the heretics' pamphlets. Your stutter is the butt of many rude jokes." The king didn't kill the jester. In order to rule smarter, the king needed the jester's insights."
-Rick Steves.

Not a fan of Orban. Loved the RS best of Central Europe tour though.

Personally I boycott Russia... and Akron Oh. Those folks from Southern Ohio have been turning up their noses at Cleveland ever since our river caught on fire.

Your tourist dollars are going to be spent supporting the local tourist industry, from hotels to restaurants, bars etc, they're not going to be lining Orban's pockets. Like him or not you have to accept that he was elected freely and democratically.

It's your choice whether to visit Hungary or not but if you do go it doesn't mean that you're providing support for a politician whose politics you disagree with.

I'm not sure how you'll be helping to spread a democratic message if you do decide to go, I'm pretty sure people will simply see you as just another tourist spending money.

The corollary to this "dilemma" might be - will you be abandoning America come November ?

To keep this not being derailed by webmaster, one should invert RS thoughts that traveling is a political act. We could say that not traveling is also a political act. So, RS brought this up.

Not traveling is such a small thing and does not in any way change the overall political picture. Well, one can think that way and make your excuse just as has been the norm of making excuses nowadays. No morality need ever be involved in a decision.
Court jesters as pointed barbs to the folly of kings seems as if that was long ago. In the King age. Now we do not have kings and maybe there should be more leader deprecation in places like Russia. Perhaps acerbic comedy clubs could spring up in Moscow and Budapest and tourist could partake of them on a tour. Best get them when they first come out, because the jesters may be only laughing into a cold winter wind that blows through the gray camp they now find themselves in.

The crux of the matter is not helping or hindering, and it is not a democratic advance anyway. Take that out of the equation. You go or you don’t according to your inner core beliefs. And a journey there for many may be too frightening.

Not traveling as a political act. RS only had only half the of the problem served.

Always intrigued by these issues. Many slippery slope issues as well. Budapest has an anti Orban mayor, and most of the Budapest parliamentary delegation is anti Orban, fwiw. I’d like to know how popular his stance on the war is. Don’t think it hurt him outside of Budapest in the last election.
You mention visiting Bratislava, whose national government also is now leaning pro neutrality in Russia Ukraine war and whose new government is iirc fairly pro Orban. Similarly the Italian government has ministers in it who would be considered similar to Orban in ideology and the Swedish government relies on support in parliament from a party that many consider a very negative force.

Personally I like it when the electorate has a big say in national issues as they do in Switzerland so I could boycott all other countries and just visit Switzerland. (that actually could work).

I appreciate the thoughtful answers. To add a bit more context, Orban's buddies, the oligarch's have bought up a good chunk of Budapest and their dramatic increase in wealth is going to perpetuate overt corrupt acts.

I had a neighbor, college professor who was also a baseball fanatic once said. "If MLB gave Castro a baseball franchise, communism there would quickly collapse in that country." I responded, "and corrupt capitalism would fill the void."

The views of Hungarians:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/08/03/hungarians-differ-in-their-evaluations-of-democracy-under-orbans-leadership/

Ultimately, you decide what you can live with. I have a do not go list both for past activities and current.
Though I also am aware few countries can survive the surface scratching test, I have made a personal decision to simplify choices. I am of an age where I don't have enough travel years to see all that does interest me, so scratching some places off a list makes planning the next trip easier.
We most likely won't impact the country we do or do not visit, but if it means losing sleep over going, then don't. The fact that you are asking means you are uneasy in your mind.

Not a bad topic if you can keep it travel related, as opposed to political (which I am happy to do in a PM)

1. Orban did not win the vote in Budapest, but Budapest is 2 million out of 10 million.
   
2. Orban is not generally beloved by many under the age of 40 with college educations and good jobs.
3. Orban did amazing things regarding the reconstruction of Budapest. And he was clever enough to get the EU to pay for a lot of it.
   
4. Orban’s foreign policy seems to be in keeping with the war time foreign policies of all those Hungarian leaders that came before him.
   
5. I know of one tourist property “reported” to be owned in part by the Orban family, but the statements that Orbán’s own a huge chuck of the tourist market are unsubstantiated and undocumented. Or at least I haven’t heard of any hard evidence.
   
6. If half the tourists stay away this year, then the Orban foreign policy will remain unchanged, but Hungary, one of the poorest countries in Europe, will loose more than $3 billion in revenue.
7. If half the tourists stay away this year, then possibly 250,000, mostly minimum wage, people in the city that opposed Orban in the last election will be unemployed or under employed.
   
8. Hungary did have close to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees living within its borders. The Hungarian government made every provision a moral state should make. The refugees were treated well by both the government and by the citizens of Budapest. I know of one mother that spent about 9 months here, then returned to her husband in Kyiv, but still makes frequent return trips with her children and would like to maybe live here someday. So she found the distinction between Orban and Hungary.
   

It’s hard to make a moral argument one way or the other on this one. So, I respect the opinions of both sides.

If you are an LGBT traveler, none of this in Hungary is new, or news, or a surprise. Chances are your queer friends and family dumped Hungary off their bucket list back in 2020, if not sooner. But 2020 especially is when Hungary took a hard turn against same-sex couples -- a shift, incidentally, being replicated almost to the letter in Italy today by Giorgia Meloni. As others have noted, a drop in LGBT travel is likely to go unnoticed in the scheme of things, and may have a negative impact on queer businesses in Budapest and elsewhere. But while your subject line suggests a "moral and political conundrum," I would add that countries like Hungary create a real safety conundrum for a certain subset of travelers -- a conundrum that many assume applies only to places like Africa and the Middle East. Perhaps that realization impacts how certain travelers spend their dollars...

History Traveler, if you equate Hungary and Poland (essentially the same laws) to Lybia or Afganastan, where gays are pubically executed, and you sincerely believe it then indeed you should stay away.

I am not able to figure this out.

I love Budapest. I am here right now. I hate the Orban policies that seems to be pro-Putin. I have a personal Ukrainian friend who dearly loves Budapest and was a war refugee here with her two young sons at the beginning of the war and felt totally supported.. As a result of this friendship, I have met and discussed these issues with two of her friends made here who are Russian, live here, and are heavily involved with helping Ukrainian refugees here. It’s hard and complicated.

I love that you think about these issues. I wish I had answers.

Fwiw, it’s quite possible that in upcoming elections Orban friendly politicians in Czechia and Austria may very well take over those governments. So there could be a regional zone of controversial regimes in terms of travel destinations.