Hilly, historic, Buda, crowned by its castle and the fairytale towers and turrets of Fishman’s Bastion, keeps a watchful eye on lively, business-minded Pest across the waters of the Danube. Grand architecture graces tree-lined boulevards, magical views reward those who stay by the river’s bank.
Fierce competition to provide the most spectacular hotels with the finest facilities and standards of service has followed in the wake of Budapest’s eruption from its years of dowdy socialism. But the city hasn’t thrown out its elegant past. By lacing luxury with history, it has embraced 21st-century business requirements and infrastructure in great style.
The Four Seasons Gresham Palace is a fine example of this. With ornate stained glass windows, intricate mosaics, sweeping staircases and soaring winter gardens, the renaissance of this palatial jewel of Art Nouveau brilliance incorporates 600 sq m of meeting and conference space, and includes ultra-modern technology. It has 179 spacious guest rooms and suites, and the entire top floor is given over to a sleek health club.
‘A legend reborn’ is the slogan of the Corinthia Grand Hotel Royal. Two bold glass atriums punctuate the faithfully restored façade, 72 tons of inlaid marble enriches the baroque-style Grand Ballroom, and there’s a glass bridge link to the Exhibition Hall. Conference facilities and meeting rooms can cater for up to 2,200 people, and the hotel, with 414 guest rooms and suites, has an executive floor and three restaurants.
An impressive thermal bath complex distinguishes the Danube-side Corinthia Aquincum Hotel. The largest of the nine multifunctional meeting rooms has a capacity of 300 delegates. The boardroom offers video conferencing facilities for 20 people.
Spas have made Budapest famous since Roman times. Today’s visitors can experience the thermal waters in an Ottoman baths palace and swim in ornate Art Nouveau splendour. So it’s not surprising that the best hotels sport some pretty impressive 21st-century spa facilities for their guests, or that ‘spa’ hotels are offering conference facilities.
The modern Danubius Thermal and Conference Hotel Helia, on the banks of the River Danube opposite leafy Margaret Island, has 11 conference rooms catering for up to 400 people alongside a range of health and beauty facilities. The newly refurbished, Belle Epoque-style, Danubius Grand Hotel Margitsziget, actually on the 2km-long, traffic-free island of parks and gardens, links an elegant spa and medical centre with the hotel’s eight conference rooms that can cater for up to 300 people. The grandest lady of them all, the Art Nouveau Danubius Hotel Gellert, may be looking a little faded now, but it has been a city landmark for over 80 years, and its pool must still be the most evocative. It has 11 conference rooms for up to 400 people.
Hungary’s only two members of the Leading Hotels of the World sit close by in the financial district. The classically elegant Le Méridien Budapest in the restored Adria Palace has an air of calm and fine attention to detail, as well as an excellent restaurant frequented by city high-flyers. It offers a ballroom and six meeting rooms with a capacity from ten to 250 people. The Kempinski Budapest Hotel Corvinus has sumptuous modern décor, a ballroom that can be separated into three section rooms, five salons and two boardrooms. For big conferences, the two hotels have created a partnership and between them can provide 580 luxurious rooms, including 56 suites; over 1500 sq m of conference and banquet space, up to 15 breakout rooms, four restaurants and three bars.
The Marriott is one of the largest hotel-based convention centres in the city, and while its architecture won’t win any prizes, its views over the Danube are spectacular. The location of the Hilton Budapest, high on Castle Hill, is superb, and being built around a 13th-century Dominican monastery gives its 21 state-of-the-art conference rooms a unique venue proposition.
There’s the hip new Art’otel, created from four restored Baroque townhouses on the banks of the Danube, opposite the magnificent Parliament building, and the sunny rooms behind the Bauhaus exterior of the Andrássy, one of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World, and its fashion-statement restaurant, belie its communist history. Budapest hosts a multitude of options for small group meetings to big-scale conferences.
