Veszprem
Veszprém County's economy runs on two clocks that cannot synchronise. From June to August, the northern shore of Lake Balaton — Hungary's largest lake and its most visited domestic destination — floods the county with tourists, filling hotels, wineries, and the Badacsony wine district's tasting rooms. From September to May, that demand evaporates. Meanwhile, multinational manufacturers — Valeo has operated two automotive plants here since 1993, alongside Continental and Adient — need stable, year-round workforces. The county cannot optimise for both: seasonal tourism pulls labour toward low-skill, high-turnover service work; manufacturing demands trained technicians who will not leave when the lake empties.
In 2023, Veszprém-Balaton held the European Capital of Culture designation, delivering 71 cultural infrastructure projects across 116 municipalities and drawing 1.66 million visitors to the city centre. The programme built a dance centre, a digital experience centre, and an audiovisual facility — venues designed for a year of concentrated programming, now requiring year-round visitor traffic that the county's seasonal rhythm does not produce. The designation was a demand shock, not a structural upgrade.
What persists is older and harder to replicate. Herend Porcelain Manufactory, founded in 1826, produces hand-painted luxury porcelain exported to 60 countries. Each painter trains for years before being trusted with production pieces. The factory cannot scale without destroying what makes it valuable, and it cannot pivot to volume production without becoming a commodity it would lose. The University of Pannonia trains 5,000 students in materials science, green chemistry, and Industry 4.0 applications, but graduates face a choice that most resolve the same way: accept lower wages in a county with limited knowledge-economy jobs, or leave for Budapest or Vienna. The county is 110 kilometres from Budapest — close enough to lose talent, too far to share its job market.
Veszprém County's population has declined from roughly 347,000 to 335,000 over the past decade, likely reflecting source-sink dynamics at regional scale: the county produces educated young workers and exports them to higher-density labour markets, retaining retirees and seasonal workers. Path-dependence keeps the economy locked into a structure that worked when Lake Balaton was Hungary's only affordable holiday and when manufacturing multinationals faced no competition from cheaper locations further east. Both conditions are eroding.