"The current tourism balance sheet shows the popularity of Austria as a summer destination and thus above all the competitiveness of our offer and the strength of domestic tourism. With 77.88 million overnight stays, Austria was able to almost match the record figures of 2019 this summer tourism season and is just 1.4 percent below the pre-crisis level of 2019, despite the fact that the Asian market with China and Japan was still closed this summer," said State Secretary Susanne Kraus-Winkler.
At the recent meeting of the European Travel Commission (ETC), it was noted that after two years of the pandemic and despite a difficult geo-economic situation, Austria is one of the European destinations with the fastest tourism recovery.
In terms of overnight stays from May to October, almost one-third (31.2 percent) is attributable to domestic guests. "This illustrates that Austrians remain loyal to domestic tourism and even increased by 1.7 percent in overnight stays compared to the pre-crisis year 2019," the state secretary said.
Foreign guests accounted for 68.8 percent of all overnight stays: guests from Germany (+5.6 percent) and the Netherlands (+7.1 percent) saw an increase compared to the summer tourism season in 2019.
"These impressive figures prove that domestic tourism has made a comeback. With Österreich Werbung's targeted winter campaign, our goal is to repeat the results of the summer," says Kraus-Winkler. Short-term bookings as well as inflation make it difficult to make a reliable forecast for the coming months, but according to the latest survey by Österreich Werbung, there is desire and time for a winter vacation in the main source markets.
The figures also confirm what the travel industry has been observing for some time: the upscale hotel industry as well as vacation rentals achieved a 29.2 percent increase in overnight stays during the summer tourism season, whereas the mid-range in the 1-, 2-star and 3-star lodging sector is beginning to come under increasing pressure.
In 2019, China was the most important Asian origin market with just under one million overnight stays, followed by Japan. This summer, booking numbers were down 93.7 percent in China and 85.3 percent in Japan due to Corona restrictions on origin markets.
"As the most important origin market, we are particularly missing Asians in city tourism. On the other hand, we are positively surprised by the guests from the USA, who are increasingly represented and even recorded an increase of 18.9 percent of overnight stays this year," says Kraus-Winkler.