Supervisor

This thesis was conducted to outline the field of equestrian tourism laying a focus on Hungary and Finland. The work was commissioned by Kati Mucsi from Akác-tanya agritourism and horse farm in Újlengyel, Hungary. The purpose of the thesis was to acquire information on equestrian tourism, benefit Akác-tanya and generally increase awareness about the field. A research was included in the thesis and it was a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. A semi-structured interview was made for equine tourism professionals in both countries and a questionnaire was conducted with the students of three equestrian institutes in Finland. Additionally, the heads of those programs were interviewed. The research mainly took place in November 2012 in Hungary and in February 2013 in Finland. All in all there were 6 interview and 21 questionnaire respondents, all except one being female. The results showed that only a few students knew Akác-tanya, however, a strong interest to visit the firm arose. The heads of programs had heard about Akác-tanya and were interested in co-operation. Equestrian touris