Austrian tourism authorities report successful summer season. The number of overnight stays from May to October increased by 2.7% to 74.87 million. The figure is the highest since 1992 and is only about 3.4 million below the record in the summer season of 1980 with 78.23 million overnight stays.
According to the provisional statistics from Statistik Austria, both the number of domestic and foreign overnight stays increased. Foreign overnight stays by 3.6% to 52.51 million, while the domestic ones by 0.5% to 22.36 million. Domestic arrivals also increased by 1.3% to 7.93 million, but foreign arrivals had a bigger growth – 5.7% to 15.97 million.
So far in the course of 2017, just under 129 million overnight stays and 38 million arrivals were registered. This corresponds to an increase of 2% compared to the same period last year.
Lower Austria Attracts More Visitors
Lower Austria registered the biggest increase. 4.1% more overnight stays were counted in this part of the country. In Vienna and Carinthia the overnight stays rose by 3.6%, while in Upper Austria it was by 3.5% followed by Salzburg with 3.3%. Tyrol, with 21.1 million (+1.8%), was the state with the highest number of overnight stays. Styria recorded an increase of 1.5%, Vorarlberg 1.1% and in Burgenland the number remained practically unchanged.
More Eastern European Tourists
“Austrian tourism destinations score points abroad with the diverse offer, impressive nature and high quality services and employees,” says Tourism Minister Harald Mahrer. Mahrer was particularly pleased with the strong growth in guest arrivals from Eastern European countries. Czech Republic inflow rose by 6.6%, Hungarian by 8.8%, Polish by 6.9%, Romanian by 11.7% and there were 31.4% more Russian tourists.
More Germans, while Dutch and Swiss Decrease
Germany, Austria’s biggest source market, accounted for 37% of overnight stays in this year’s summer season – an increase of 3.5%. Overnight stays were also positive for guests from Italy with an 1.7% increase, as well as USA (+9.1%) or France.
However, fewer overnight stays (-0.7%) were counted for guests from the second biggest source market – the Netherlands. Guests from Switzerland (-2%) or the UK (-1%) also represented fewer overnight stays this summer season.
Austrians Spending More Time at Home
In the period from January to October, 128.89 overnight stays were registered. This is an increase of two percent compared to the same period last year. Domestic overnight stays increased to 33.9 million, while those of foreign guests by 2.5% to 95.1 million. The number of arrivals increased by 3.5% to 37.6 million.
