Hungarian businessman Gabor Szeles is planning a large-scale tourism investment at the Zala Springs Golf Resort, Hungary’s largest 18-hole golf course, local media reported on November 19.

Szeles is planning to invest HUF77bn (€239mn) in the coming years, building a five-star hotel, a wellness centre and an artificial thermal lake on a 160 hectare area. This would be one of the largest tourism investments in all of Central and Eastern Europe.

Media reports did not detail how Szeles would finance the project. His good ties with the Fidesz government, however, will assure the project will receive support at the highest levels.

Hungary’s sixth richest person with an estimated HUF142bn in wealth made his fortune in the late 1980s with an IT company importing products on the CoCom list. Before the regime change, computers and software couldn't be exported to the former Warsaw Pact countries.

Szeles also owns Videoton, which made military equipment and radio and TV sets before 1990. The company was turned into an electronics manufacturer generating HUF10bn or more in profits each year. The businessman also gained ownership in Ikarus, the world's largest bus maker before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

He entered the media market in 2005, when Fidesz was still in opposition, by taking over liberal Magyar Hirlap and turning it into a conservative daily. He established a commercial television channel, which was sold last year to Lorinc Meszaros, Hungary’s most powerful businessman, seen by many as the proxy of Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Szeles has kept his media portfolio over the years, despite massive losses, in the hope of landing a ministerial job, according to sources close to the businessman. He nearly became economy minister under the first democratically elected conservative government in 1990.

In January 2012, he organised the first Peace March, a grand pro-government rally drawing 100,000 supporters, after Orban’s government came under harsh criticism for his unorthodox economic policies, for amending the Constitution, trimming checks and balances.

Orban was grateful to Szeles for standing up for him in difficult times and he was rewarded with state contracts, although the scale of these are dwarfed in comparison to the value of contracts won by Meszaros’ companies.

The Zala Springs Golf Resort was opened in 2015 in Zalacsany, a small town in Zala county located close to the resort town of Heviz and Lake Balaton. The complex, which has become a popular destination for foreign golf lovers, also features studio and premium apartments. The businessman has so far invested HUF9bn in the project from his own money.

Szeles based his concept on bringing tourists from Russia and Western Europe to his golf complex through regional airport Heviz Balaton in Sarmellek, in which he also has a minority stake. Hungary’s tourism is breaking new records year by year, and the government has plans to invest hundreds of billions in the sector with the aim of boosting its contribution to GDP to 16% from 10% at present.