AUSTRIA: SUMMER SEASON BRINGS A NEW OVERNIGHT STAY RECORD

This year’s summer brings positive results for Austrian tourism. A strong increase of German, Swiss, Dutch, British and American visitors has led to a new record of 17 million overnight stays (+2.1 percent) in the current summer season (May and June).

Russia however has shown a decrease of 30 percent with 51,000 fewer overnight stays than in May and June of 2014. In total, the number of foreign stays has increased by 3.7 percent, which can mostly be traced back to increased traffic from USA (+10.2 percent), UK (+4.5 percent), the Netherlands (+4.4 percent), Switzerland and Liechtenstein (+3.8 percent) and Germany (+2.8 percent).

Domestic tourism, on the other hand, was not as strong. The domestic overnight stays of 0.7 percent displayed a slight decrease, according to Statistik Austria.

The number of total guests increased by almost four percent to 6.12 million „Thanks to the pleasant weather in July, this positive development is bound to continue. The number of bookings and general mood of the tourism regions support this claim,” said minister of tourism and economy Reinhold Mitterlehner with great optimism for the remaining summer.

In June, Statistik Austria recorded 9.83 million overnight stays, which is a decrease of 2.7 percent in comparison to June 2014. The holiday displacements from last year’s June to this year’s May led to increases in overnight stays and arrivals in May 2015 and equivalent decreases in June, explained Statistik Austria.

The current year (January to June) has shown positive results. The number of overnight stays increased by 2.3 percent to a total of 67.83 million. The biggest factor contributing to this increase was a surge in German tourism, which is the most important market for Austria’s travel sector. In the first two quarters alone, this market increased by 3.9 percent, bringing the number of overnight stays to 18.73 million with an increase of four percent.